Another deadline missed for activating metro barriers

The Ministry of Transport missed another deadline on Thursday in the schedule of its initiative to crack down on fare dodging on the capital’s metro and ISAP electric railway, and is now aiming to have all of the system’s electronic barriers functioning by the end of March.

Electronic barriers have only been activated at seven of the capital’s 60 metro and ISAP stations, meaning that the Athens Urban Transport Organization (OASA) faces at least another few weeks of losses from rampant fare-dodging as it waits for Transport Minister Christos Spirtzis to activate the system, which was installed in November.

Indicative of the chaos caused by the ministry’s continued delay in closing the barriers is the fact that many of the 400,000 travel cards OASA has sold have not yet been activated, suggesting that commuters are still using the metro and ISAP for free thanks to the absence of inspections and barriers.