History of Sofia’s Urban Transport

During the period of company development, including the time from 01.01.1901 to 01.09.1916 when it was operated by an anonymous Belgian corporation, the management was entrusted to a director nominated by the General Meeting of the company. The first manager was a Bulgarian – Yuriy Ilkov. He managed the company until 01.02.1903.

On 01.09.1916 the Municipality of Sofia instituted a procedure of expropriation of the company from the Belgian anonymous corporation and established a Department of Trams and Lighting, the director of which was Eng. Tsvetan Boyadzhiev.

In 1948 was incorporated the Sofia Urban Passenger Transport Company whose business was the operation of trams, trolleybuses and buses.

In 1952 Urban Passenger Transport Company divided into two enterprises: Sofia Autotransport Company and Sofia Urban Electrotransport Company.

In 1959 the transport operator enterprises merged under the name Urban Passenger Transport Company.

By a merger of 13 municipal and commercial companies servicing mass urban transport, Sofia Company for Urban Transport OOD (SKGT) was incorporated in 1993. In 1996 SKGT EOOD acquired the plant for production and repair of trams - Tramcar EOOD.

In 02.06.1998 a holding company was incorporated under the name SKGT Holding EAD. It had five subsidiaries.

In the following years the subsidiaries were transformed into joint-stock companies in which Sofia Company held 34% of the shares, and Sofia Municipality held 66%.

On 14.12.2002, SKGT Holding EAD was transformed into a single member limited liability company that owns municipal property under the name Capital Company for URBAN TRANSPORT – SOFIA EOOD. A department was separated from the company and incorporated as International Transport and Tourism – Sofia EOOD.

On 02.02.2009, Car Parks and Garages EOOD was incorporated into SKGT - Sofia EOOD, with the name of the newly established company being Urban Mobility Centre EOOD. Legal successor of all the business of SKGT- Sofia EOOD became the new Urban Mobility Centre EOOD, with Eng. Nikolay Kostov and Eng. Marchelo Dokovski as current managers.

The performance of the passenger transport service was assigned to two joint-stock companies:

Sofia Autotransport EAD
Sofia Electrotransport EAD

and three private transport operators:

Carat-C AD (bus lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 14, 30, 42, 54, 59, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 84, 90, 114, 123, 306 and 404)
Union Trade Company OOD (bus lines 27, 74 and 150)
Eridatrans (bus line 260).

The rights of sole owner of Urban Mobility Centre EOOD are exercised by Sofia Municipal Council.