“Brașov will be the first city in Romania with fully electric public transport”, said the Romanian Environment Minister Costel Alexe during his visit to the city last week. Mr Alexe, also performed a field inspection of the SOR electric buses purchased by Brașov City Hall through grant financing of over 100 million lei.
Reducing pollution and improving air quality
The Environment Minister launched the public consultation of the Guide on reducing pollution and improving air quality, a program funded by AFM (Environmental Fund Administration), with a budget of 480 million lei for this year. In this regard, the aim of the visit of the minister in Brașov was to see what the benefits of this program mean in practice.
During the visit, Minister Costel Alexe was accompanied by Mayor George Scripcaru. Photo by Brașov Municipality
Brașov benefits from non-reimbursable financing from AFM, with the help of which it purchased 52 SOR electric buses. Thanks to the support of the Ministry of Environment, Brasov is moving fast to achieving its goal of having 100% electric public transport fleet.
With the help of the 480 million lei another 350 environmentally friendly public transport vehicles (trolleybuses, trams and buses) will move on the streets of Romania, informed Mr Alexe. He appealed to the local public administrations in the country to make investments in infrastructure, public transport, green spaces that will help to reduce pollution in their municipalities, the way Brașov has done with its Integrated Plan on Air Quality.
At this moment, several environmentally friendly means of transportation are circulating in Brașov:
- 26 Solaris trolleybuses (produced in Poland), purchased with a Regional Operational Program (ROP) grant, in partnership with the Ministry of Public Works, Development and Administration;
- 14 SOR electric buses (produced in the Czech Republic), financed by the Environment Fund Administration.
In addition to the 78 vehicles, another 55 are in different stages of acquisition, as follows:
- 8 SOR electric buses, also financed by the Regional Operational Program, in partnership with the Ministry of Public Works, Development and Administration, are being supplied;
- 25 trolleybuses, also financed by the ROP, for which only one supplier, the Polish company Solaris, has submitted a tender, are in a tender evaluation phase;
- 10 hybrid buses, with non-reimbursable EU funding, through the ROP, have 18 September as a deadline for submission of tenders;
- 12 electric buses, financed by the ROP, with a partnership and under procurement procedure of MLPDA.
With a total of 133 electric vehicles, the public transit system in the city of Brașov will fully consist of environmentally friendly transport.
Source: TheMayor.EU
