Slovaks prefer cars to buses more than ever

While the number of people using public transport has been decreasing year by year, cars are sold in the hundreds of thousands in Slovakia.

The statistics show that the number of cars in Slovak households was twice as big as the number of newborn children in 2016, the Hospodárske Noviny (HN) daily wrote on February 20.

“Cars give people a sense of freedom and guarantees that they can get where they want to go,” transport analyst Ján Bazovský told HN. “In case of need, they can easily change plans and destination.”

He sees exactly the absence of these advantages behind the current decline in public transport’s popularity.

The Bratislava municipal public transport company, Dopravný Podnik Bratislava (DPB), is currently working on several projects that should promote public transport among people – through communication and marketing, and pointing to the advantages of public transport over individual.

More disadvantages than advantages

The analyst opines that this might not be enough. In Bratislava, public transport is mostly about buses and trolleybuses that get stuck in traffic jams just as often as cars. And they tend to be late.

Bratislava regional governor Juraj Droba sees the solution in involving train transport, as well as expanding the trams, which currently comprise only seven percent of all the city public transport lines, HN wrote.

City transport means represent 15 percent of the total number of vehicles on the roads. Out of all Slovakia, 19 percent of all passenger vehicles are driven Bratislava. 2.1 million passenger cars are driven in Slovakia.