Air conditioning not on in Marshrutkas

A mobile group from Tbilisi Mayor’s Office has announced that only in 20 percent of marshrutkas (yellow mini busses) the air conditioning was switched on.

The Mayor’s Office stated that from now on they will send the list of the marshrutkas, where the air conditioning is switched off to the Tbilisi Microavtobusi company, which operate marshrutkas in the capital city.

The Mayor’s Office claims that the company is ready for cooperation.

It is very hot in Tbilisi and it is extremely hard to stay in an overcrowded Marshrutka when the driver refuses to switch on air conditioning.

The drivers were obliged to switch on the air conditioning from July1 if the temperature was higher than 25 degrees centigrade.

June was quite hot in Tbilisi, with the temperature more than 25-30 degrees. However, air conditioning was switched off in every marshrutkas.

When the obligation came into play, The Messenger has tried to check how the drivers obeyed the rule.

We stopped a random Marshrutka driving from central Tbilisi to Gldani and when we got in the air conditioning was switched off.

We demanded that the driver to switch it on.

He initially ignored the demand, however, when we repeated our request he said that the air-conditioning system didn’t work.

As we found out later, many drivers claim that the air-conditioning system doesn’t work in order to avoid switching on the system and spending more money on our vehicle.

In private conversations they say that their daily pay to the company is high and they will have to spend more if they switch on the air conditioning system.

This means that neither the company nor the drivers think about a passenger who pays for the service and the Tbilisi Mayor’s Office fails to protect the interest of its people.

The problem continues from year to year and as it appears public protest to the stubborn drivers and the company can be the best outcome.