Moving of departures to new BAS to start in mid-September – Buses from south direction to enter through Ring Road, city line transfers to be made near Transped

It seems that there will no longer be any delays of the moving of the intercity bus departures from the existing Belgrade Bus Station (Beogradska autobuska stanica – BAS) in the Sava Amphitheater to the new BAS in Block 42 in New Belgrade. As eKapija learns, the moving of the departures to the new, unfinished bus station should begin in mid-September and that process, as we have been told, will lead to several changes which will directly affect the passengers who use the intercity lines.

These changes, all things considered, will affect the passengers who arrive to Belgrade from the south direction the most. As a source familiar with the plan unofficially told us, the idea is for all buses who arrive to Belgrade from central, east, southeast and south Serbia not to enter the city through the highway (since recently categorized as a motorway) and the Gazela Bridge, but exclusively through the Ring Road around Belgrade in the future.

As has been clarified for us, the Ministry of Finance has sent memos to the Belgrade secretariats for public transport and traffic to find a solution and permanently remove the stops for the intercity lines at the entrance to Belgrade from the south direction, so that, from September 15, those buses would start traveling to and from the new BAS only through the ring road. The aim is to disable them, in the future, from using the public transport stands that they have been using for years, which the passengers themselves benefited from the most.

Regarding this information, we have sent questions to the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance, the Secretariat for Public Transport, the Secretariat for Traffic and BAS. Among other things, we wanted to know whether all this was true, in what way the moving of the departures was planned, why this question, which would affect the passengers who use the intercity lines the most, was being dealt with by the Ministry of Finance, and not the one in charge of the traffic, as well as what the plan was for transfers to the public transport for the passengers who had no need to go to New Belgrade.

Concrete answers and partial clarifications have arrived only from the Belgrade Secretariat for Public Transport. They have confirmed that the Ministry of Finance, which is within the working body consisting of representatives of the ministry itself, the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia, BAS and the city secretariats for traffic and public transport, “has initiated the harmonization of the arrangement of the traffic on the lines of the intercity transport after the moving of the new bus station to the new location in Block 42 in New Belgrade.”

– The decision proposal is such that buses on the intercity lines will not be allowed to use the Gazela Bridge, or to enter the city from the direction of the Bubanj Potok interchange, that is, the vehicles will be redirected to use the Ring Road around Belgrade – the secretariat has confirmed our findings.

The existing plan by which the city services are conducting themselves, the secretariat adds, envisages the moving of the main bus station to the new location in Block 42 in mid-September.

– For all questions regarding the technology of the moving, you need to address the operator, that is, BAS itself – the secretariat said.

We have officially asked BAS, but haven’t received an answer, so it is still not known, although there’s only slightly more than a month and a half left until the moving begins, whether the departures are to be moved in phases, whether the departures toward Vojvodina and the rest of Serbia will be divided at the new station as well, what will happen to the employees from the old BAS…


– The bus stop Transped, within the current arrangement, is used by public transport and suburban transport lines nos. 70, 354, 460,461, 462 and 463 and, under the new act, vehicles for intercity transport will also be able to use them. The execution of any kind of construction works is not a pre-condition for the realization of said traffic arrangement – the city secretariat notes.

The question is how practical this will be for the passengers who want to reach Belgrade center, given that, of said lines, only the line 70 even remotely passes near the center, going between IKEA and Bezanijska Kosa, whereas the others are more peripheral and of little use to those who don’t live in Belgrade. The line 354 is a good example, as it connects Sumice and Zaklopaca. In addition to that, the departure intervals are a problem. All things considered, most passengers who have no other choice will take the line 70, but the problem is that that line too does not have frequent departures during the day and that it is a solo bus, not an articulated one.

Furthermore, it is unclear whether a study has been done that would confirm whether the Transped stop would be able to handle a higher number of intercity buses at the same time and whether there is enough room and adequate canopies at that stop for all the passengers who make an exit there in the future, especially in rainy or hot weather.

There’s also the question of whether, in the future, the only option for passengers from the country will be to go to the new BAS, because there is no stop at Transped in the opposite direction, as reminded by our sources familiar with the matter.

For the time being, it seems, these changes will not affect the users of suburban transport lines to and from, for example, Mladenovac or Sopot, whose buses will continue entering the city as before, provided there are no last-moment changes.



What do passengers have to say to all this?

Passengers who frequently use the intercity transport from the south direction, who work in Belgrade, and who live in one of the municipalities and cities bordering the capital city, emphasize that the decision to redirect the buses from the south direction to the ring road from mid-September is bad and not well thought out. As they point out, there has clearly been no consideration of the passengers’ actual needs.

– Using the ring road will extend the travel time, and there are plenty of people who use the intercity buses on a daily level to get to their jobs in the capital city. With this change, they will lose an additional 30 to 45 minutes. Even with the current arrangement, many are barely making it to work, and this change could easily force some of those people to quit their jobs – warn the passengers from the country that we talked to.

There have already been announcements of passengers from the country that they will send memos to those in charge to reconsider the decision.

Why the ring road, and not the Gazela Bridge?

There is no official explanation why this is the optimal way for the future bus traffic from the south direction. However, according to unofficial findings, the intention is to make the passengers pay for the station service at BAS, which, as the passengers claim, goes up to 300 dinars, and for which they get no concrete service at the station.

What does the new BAS have at the moment?

The station plateau with the platforms, fences and canopies, as well as the majority of access roads, has been developed at the new bus station. But, this station, just like Prokop, when it became the main rail station, will not have a traditional station building with counters and other features for some time. A tiny annex, the future heated corridor of the new BAS and the New Belgrade Rail Station, will serve that purpose for the time being.

When it comes to the public transport lines that operate the zone of the future BAS, there are several bus and tram lines, but it is clear that they will not be sufficient for the coming enormous volume of intercity traffic that will flow into the area.

– For a significant reorganization of the public transport in the zone of said location, it is necessary to build the planned bus turn in Milutina Milankovica Street. Certainly care has been taken about the position of the new bus location in the past period, that is, in arranging the traffic in the zone of Block 42, which has resulted in the establishment of the line 600 on the Nikola Tesla Airport-Block 42-Belgrade Center Rail Station route, the redirection of the line 85 to Marka Hristica Street, the establishment of the line EKO1 in Djordja Stanojevic Street, with the existing tram lines 7, 9, 11, 13, the bus lines 89, 94, 95 and the BG Voz line – says the Secretariat for Public Transport.

Dejan Aleksic

Ministarstvo građevinarstva, saobraćaja i infrastrukture Republike Srbije

Ministarstvo finansija Republike Srbije

Sekretarijat za javni prevoz Beograd

Privredna komora Srbije

BAS Beogradska autobuska stanica a.d. Beograd

Ministry of Construction Transport and Infrastructure

Ministry of Finance

Secretariat for Public Transport of the City of Belgrade

Secretariat for Traffic of the City of Belgrade

Chamber of Commerce of Serbia

Beogradska autobuska stanica ad Beograd

BAS

moving of departures to new BAS in Block 42

new BAS in Block 42