Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — Fare payment checks on Tashkent buses are being tightened from 2 October, with inspectors now able to block validators while checking passengers to prevent trips from being registered after an inspection has begun.
Passengers who have not paid their fare or registered their trip when boarding the bus may be fined. The Tashkent City Transport Company, Toshshahartranskhizmat, said.
The company separately warned passengers that payment cannot be postponed until an inspector appears or until the end of the journey. “Excuses such as ‘I’ll pay when I see the inspector’ or ‘I’ll pay when I reach my stop’ will no longer work,” the company said in a video it published.
The requirement to pay for a trip immediately upon boarding has been in effect since 1 September for passengers using bus routes operating under the gross-contract system. Under a government resolution, a passenger who has not paid the fare in the prescribed manner is considered to be travelling without a ticket.
The current fine for travelling without a ticket is 44,000 soums.
Abduvokhid Khudoyberdiyev, deputy director of the state institution Tashkent Monitoring and Control of Passenger Transport, said the tighter controls are aimed at enforcing the payment procedure established by the government resolution.
At the same time, the new requirement remains inconvenient for some passengers. Many residents of the capital are accustomed to paying for their trip immediately before getting off the bus and continue to follow this practice. Some passengers also told correspondents that they were unaware of the change in procedure despite periodic announcements inside buses.
Paying immediately upon boarding may take additional time, particularly when there are large numbers of passengers.
Passengers can board and exit Tashkent buses through all doors, meaning that some passengers may move into the middle or rear of the bus after boarding without having had time to use a validator.
Additional difficulties arise when paying by QR code, as passengers need to open an application on their smartphone and scan the code with the camera. When buses are crowded, doing this immediately after boarding can be difficult.
The automated fare payment system began being introduced in Tashkent in 2020. From 1 January 2025, the city’s public transport system fully switched to cashless payments, while the number of conductors on buses was also reduced.
Previously, conductors not only collected cash fares but also used passengers’ bank cards to pay for trips through validators.
Some public transport users believe that enforcement should primarily target passengers who deliberately avoid paying the fare.
“The priority should be to deal with those who do not pay for their trips, rather than those who will pay but do not do so upon boarding,” one regular passenger said.
