Moscow to electrify entire bus fleet by 2030
Moscow’s bus fleet is to be completely converted to purely electric buses by 2030. Mosgortrans, the operator of the bus and tram network in the Russian capital, says that the fleet is to be expanded to more than 2,000 electric buses.
There are currently around 600 electric buses on the road in Moscow, and according to Mosgortrans, 400 more electric buses will be added by the end of the year. The procurement of a further 420 vehicles is planned for 2022, after which the fleet will continue to be expanded by a further 855 electric buses. At the same time, the existing combustion engine buses are to be removed from the fleet.
Artyom Burlakov, deputy head of the innovative projects department at Mosgortrans said: “Every year the plan will be to replace all wheeled public transport vehicles with electric buses.” Reuters reported Moscow’s electrification push, did not get details about the procurement programmes and the vehicles used. Until now, Mosgortrans has been using vehicles from GAZ and Kamaz, the latter of which began building a production plant for electric buses and their components in Moscow in 2019. A corresponding agreement with Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said at the time that Kamaz would make at least 500 electric buses per year in the Russian capital in future.
In addition to the bus network, Mosgortrans also operates the trams in Moscow. Here, too, new, more efficient vehicles are to be purchased. Mikhail Babenko of WWF Russia praised the decarbonisation of the fleet, but also said that there was still a long way to go before residents change their own behaviour. Moscow is notorious for its traffic jams.
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