Skopje commuters wait 40 minutes for a bus again: the private operators are gone, and the JSP buses arrive packed

This morning Skopje's bus stops turned into waiting rooms. Residents of Volkovo had been waiting for a bus since 6:15, and for more than 40 minutes not a single one came. On line 23, passengers say they waited more than an hour. At the railway station, buses on lines 5, 15a and 27 were passing through, but so full that people physically could not get on.

"Looks like the private operators aren't running today. We've been waiting for a bus since 6:15," a Volkovo resident wrote in a local social media group, with a tip for the neighbours: "Leave early if you don't want to be late today." That is the real timetable of Skopje's public transport - a social media post.

This is not the first time. In June 2025 the private operators stopped running for two days, claiming the public operator JSP owed them more than 150 million denars. In October 2025 they ran only from 5 to 10 in the morning, again over debt, that time 90 million denars. In February this year some of them could not set off because of faulty GPS ticket validators.

So far there is no official statement explaining this morning's chaos. Residents, who pay for their tickets and arrive late for work and school, are once again finding out what is going on from their neighbours, over the phone.

Every time the money dispute between JSP and the private operators blows up, passengers pay the price - in time, nerves and lost working hours. How many more times does this have to happen before the City of Skopje finds a lasting solution instead of yet another stopgap payment?