Public transport in Moscow will become 5-7 percent more expensive starting June, City Hall said Tuesday.
The new pricing structure takes into account the increase in residents’ wages and inflation, the Moscow transportation department said in an online statement.
The department said it had resisted calls from the Moscow metro and Mosgortrans ā the city’s surface transportation authority ā to raise ticket prices by 87 percent.
Instead, the carriers were told to make better use of their internal resources tŠ¾ restrict future hikes in ticket prices, the statement said.
The price of a five-trip metro ticket will rise from 150 rubles to 160 rubles ($4.2-4.5), 20-trip tickets will increase by 40 rubles to 540 rubles and 60-trip tickets will jump from 1,200 rubles to 1,300 rubles.
The so-called 90 minute ticket, which allows for one trip on the metro and an unlimited number of trips on surface transportation within this time period, and combined tickets for bus, tram and trolleybus rides will also be subject to price rises.
However, the price of Troika tickets, which incorporate all three of the aforementioned types of ticket, will remain the same in June, as will the price of regular one and two-trip tickets.
From Jan. 1, 2014, the price of one and two-trip metro tickets rose from 30 and 60 rubles to 40 and 80 rubles, while the price of corresponding bus, tram and trolley tickets also increased.
The price increases were explained by City Hall as a way of encouraging commuters to buy multiple-use tickets to reduce lines at selling points and limit production costs on the single-use card paper tickets, which tend to be discarded once the commuter passes through the turnstiles.
In December, after it was announced that single-use tickets would become more expensive in the new year, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin promised a price freeze on all other types of ticket for public transport in the city in 2014, Interfax reported.