For years, the transport companies have been earning tens of millions of euros from the public transport fines paid by students. They broke their promise that these fines would be abolished when the public transport chip card was introduced.
This is revealed in documents that the Higher Education Press Agency has requested from the Ministry of Education in the context of the Freedom of Information Act. The transport companies are lobbying to be allowed to continue issuing fines and even to increase them.
Many students are forgetful and are late in cancelling their student travel card. As a result, they receive fines of 97 euros per half a month. Together, students pay tens of millions of euros to the public transport companies: last year, that was forty million. The record is 52.6 million in 2014.
