Ufa Bus Driver Seizes Child's Failed Alga Card

A bus driver in Ufa confiscated an Alga card from a child passenger after she was unable to pay her fare. The carrier said the driver was spoken to and told not to do this again. UFA1.RU reports the details of this story.

A Ufa woman complained about a Bashavtotrans bus driver. According to her account, her 13-year-old daughter failed to notice that her Alga card had run out of money and tried to use it to pay her fare. When it did not work, she took out a bank card. The driver took both cards and, according to the disgruntled mother, drove the girl past her stop.

Bashavtotrans initially said it would look into the matter within three days, even though the Ufa woman provided the route and the bus«s license plate number.

“My daughter called me and told me all this, and I told the driver on speakerphone that I was about to call a police squad. He dropped [the child] off, but he never gave back the cards,” the woman said.

The next day, Bashavtotrans said the driver had been summoned “on the carpet”: he received “additional instruction on passenger transportation rules,” and was reminded of the need to communicate politely with passengers and treat children with care.

“The driver was issued a reprimand,” the carrier«s response stated.

The company offered the Ufa woman to get in touch personally to be informed of the results of the review.

Unfortunately, this is not the first such case in recent years: in December 2023, a private operator refused to accept payment by Alga from an 11-year-old girl and dropped her off. She waited 40 minutes for the next bus. That story reached the prosecutor«s office and the Kurultai — the driver was fined 5,000 rubles (about $56).

Another private operator: in May 2024, he dropped off a 13-year-old boy because of Alga. The story reached the head of Bashkortostan. The same carrier was involved in a similar scandal in November 2024. Another route operator in January 2025 berated a mother and child because of Alga.

In March 2026, a Ufa woman demanded an apology from Bashavtotrans because a driver would not let a child off who had been unable to pay her fare by Alga.