Chisinau has 20 brand new citybuses

On Saturday, June 10, in Chisinau were presented within an official ceremony 20 German-made MAN citybuses, acquired for the municipality from national coffers, on President Vladimir Voronin’s initiative. The acquisition is estimated at 50 million lei. At the ceremony Vladimir Voronin declared that launching these buses represents a step forward toward settling public transportation’s problems in the city and toward modernizing Chisinau. According to Mr. Voronin, besides those 100 million lei offered to the Municipality for purchasing transport units, additionally 70 million lei were remitted for repairing roads and districts of the capital. The interim mayor, Vasile Ursu expressed thankfulness to the Government and President for their support and mentioned that along this month 20 new trolleybuses are expected to be purchased. The deputy mayor, Veaceslav Iordan said that he will ask the Government for additional resources to buy 60 buses more for the capital, in order to give up to microbuses. According to the director of the Urban Buses Fleet (PUA), Anatol Gheorghita, the MAN buses are among Europe’s best. Moreover, on local administration’s request the buses were tuned in order to economize fuel. The price of a unit is of 130 000 euros, though their utilization term is of 15 years, a figure Chisinau’s buses never had before, Gheorghita says. He added that the vehicles have the best informational equipment to fit passengers’ needs, and expressed hope that in the future they will be equipped with electronic ticket checking systems, to become more comfortable and efficient. MAN buses have a capacity of transporting 96 passengers, 70 standing and 26 seating. From those 20 units, 12 are to circulate on the rout nr. 3, route nr. 5 will have 6 buses, and the rest will be heading towards the Airport. The buses will be put on the routes in 2 or 3 days, during which they will follow technical programming of the informational system, will be attached plates to and their drivers instructed. 190 buses are circulating in Chisinau at present, and 30 other units will be put back on routes after repairs.