Xàbia will pay 0.85 euros for each trip made by pensioners on local buses
The Xàbia bus carried 118,359 passengers during 2019.
PHOTO CREDIT: Xàbia AL DÍA
Wednesday 10th March 2021 | CARLOS LÓPEZ
Xàbia Council will pay 0.85 euros to Venturo SL for each trip made by pensioners in the municipality who have the travel pass during the next year, with the possibility of two extensions.
Venturo SL was the only company that presented itself to the public tender convened by the Council in order to legalize the monthly invoices that were issued for this service, under an agreement the town hall had had with the aforementioned company for finance the service for many years.
Although these monthly bills were paid promptly by the local council, they had to be approved in plenary session since the municipal intervention rejected their payment for not having held a public tender for the provision of the service.
It so happens that the price that the Council will now pay to the company for this service is ten cents higher than the price that was paid unitarily in the invoices, when 0.76 cents of euros were paid. In total, the maximum price to be paid by the town hall will be 13,728 euros per year, which would mean about 15,000 trips a year, which would be 1,300 trips per month, an amount that is not reached even in the summer months.
Although it should be noted that the specification itself states that 10 trips will be paid per month per user, 60 per year.
How many people use the bus service?
In line with this contract, XAD requested via the Portal of Transparency of the Generalitat Valenciana, the number of people that use the bus service in Xàbia. A few days ago, we received the following information:
- 2018 – 115,208
- 2019 – 118, 359
- 2020 – 15,949 (up to the second quarter of the year)
But in addition, XAD wanted to know what the administrative situation of the concession of this service is and in its response the Department states: “With respect to the administrative situation of the bus concession in Dénia, Xàbia and Calp, all these concessions have expired, and its management is prolonged until the awarding of the new contracts that replace the current ones, or until the resignation of the operator”.
