The problem with people not paying for public transport, mostly city transport, affects many Polish cities all year round. This practice escalates during the summer, when many people, including students and schoolchildren, who have free time from studies, spend much more time outside the home and use rides, often without paying. In the BIG InfoMonitor debtor database, nearly 132,000 people who have not paid for a ride are listed, with a debt of 206.7 million PLN. Importantly, these are not people caught riding “gap”, but those who did not pay a fine within 30 days of receiving it. These are the people who end up on the debtor list. And that can bring many future consequences…
Installments or a mortgage could become a problem
Most “gap” riders are young people who often do not realize the consequences of such behavior. Getting away with a ride once or twice does not mean it will always be that way. And what if inspectors catch this practice? Paying the fine seems the most reasonable solution, but it is not always the case. The list of debtors who have not paid for a ride is really long. These people largely do not realize how much harm they can do themselves. Being entered into the debtor register for many years can deprive them of the ability to buy on installments or take out a loan, both cash and mortgage. At some point in life, this can be a real problem that many people may not be aware of.
Statistics show that the average debt of a “gap” rider currently is 1,567 PLN. But it is not the same everywhere. The worst situation is in the Łódź Voivodeship, where the amount per person is 1,801 PLN. This amount includes not only fines for unpaid rides, but also interest and debt collection costs.
The problem with “gap” riders is not the same everywhere. The worst situation is in the Łódź Voivodeship, where there are over 42,000 debtors. Their debt is almost 76 million PLN. The next places on this disreputable list are residents of Masovia and Pomerania. In the first case, there are almost 27,000 debtors who have not paid for rides. Their obligations amount to nearly 40 million PLN. In the Pomeranian Voivodeship, almost 14.5 thousand debtors are on the list, generating a debt of over 22 million PLN.
It is not all bad. In Silesia and Greater Poland, there are about 1.3 thousand “gap” riders on the debtor list. Their debt is about 2 million PLN.
Solution: free transport?
Local governments complain that due to the high debt of “gap” riders they cannot carry out all planned actions, because the money that should go to their budgets is suspended, because debtors do not repay the debt. There are several cities in Poland that have adopted something like a forward escape. They eliminated the problem of “gap” riders by introducing free city transport (at least for those who are city residents, because only they can use the free rides). The key word here is “free”, which should not be confused with “free of charge”. These rides are paid for from the city budgets, which residents contribute to through taxes. And only they can use the free rides.
Starachowice in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship introduced this solution more than 4 years ago. City President Marek Materek, during a conference summarizing this period, listed the benefits that result from free transport. Among them was an increase in the number of passengers.
“In four years we transported 16 million passengers,” emphasized Marek Materek.
As the mayor of Starachowice added, the biggest increase in the number of passengers was recorded in the first year of free city transport. In October 2024 alone, 397,000 people used it (Starachowice has less than 44,000 residents). Only in the first quarter of 2026 did the number of passengers reach 970,000.
Starachowice is not an exception on a national scale. Gorzów Wielkopolski also has free city transport. Since 1 July, residents of the next Świętokrzyskie city – Skarżyska-Kamienna – can use free city transport.
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