Vitebsk to get 13 battery-assisted trolleybuses in 2020
4 January 2020
As many
as 13 battery-assisted trolleybuses will be deployed in Vitebsk in 2020, BelTA
learned from Sergei Medvedev, Director of the Vitebsk city urban electric
transport enterprise of the Vitebsk Oblast mass transit company.
On New
Year's Eve the enterprise received two AKSM-43300D trolleybuses made by the
Belarusian mechanical engineering company Belkommunmash. The trolleybuses rely
heavily on modern technologies and have been made specifically for Vitebsk. The
trolleybuses can travel for 15-20km without using overhead wires. “We've signed
13 contracts with Belkommunmash. We've already received two articulated
vehicles and expect another one in February or March 2020. Apart from that, we
will get ten non-articulated battery-assisted trolleybuses next year,” Sergei
Medvedev said.
The two
articulated trolleybuses are already being trialed. One of them was tested by
the New Year fairy-tale characters Grandfather Frost and Snow Maiden in Vitebsk
streets on 31 December. If the vehicles perform well, they may be put to use on
regular lines as soon as 3 January. One such trolleybus can carry 151
passengers.