A Memorandum of Cooperation between the Kharkiv City Council and the Turkish bus manufacturing company Karsan was signed in Kharkiv during the international forum Municipal Infrastructure: Urban Development and Comfort.
The press service of the Kharkiv City Council said, citing Secretary Ihor Terekhov, that it is planned to purchase about 500 Turkish-made buses within several years. This will become the basis for the creation of municipal bus public transport, as well as to start joint production of buses in Kharkiv.
“We have agreed with our Turkish partners that these buses will be assembled in our city. For this we will create about 300 jobs. Turkish investors will decide on the basis of which enterprise this will take place. But negotiations with local business are already underway. For Kharkiv this is an economically viable project,” the press service said, citing Terekhov.
According to him, about 150 buses of different classes (8-meter buses for rush hour traffic and 6-meter buses for transportation when traffic is less) are planned to be purchased by the end of the year. These are low-floor buses with hufter-proof coating.
Bus operator FlixBus launches trips on the route Kyiv-Warsaw, with stops in Zhytomyr, Rivne and Radom (Poland). According to the press service of the carrier, Kyiv-Warsaw buses depart from Kyiv at 16:00 on Wednesday and Saturday from the bus station Kyiv (32 Symona Petliury Street), at 15:30 on Tuesdays from Warsaw from the bus station Warszawa Zachodnia.
The company notes that all FlixBus lines have increased safety and hygiene standards. In particular, one must wear a protective mask in the bus, covering the nose and the mouth, and buses are disinfected in a professional way after each trip.
The carrier also reminds its customers to carefully check the rules of entry into the destination country.
In total, 11 FlixBus lines are currently operating in Ukraine: nine international (Odesa-Prague- Plzeň, Kyiv-Krakow-Prague, Kyiv-Warsaw, Kyiv-Vilnius, Kyiv-Krakow-Rostock, Kyiv-Cologne, Kyiv-Karlsruhe, Kyiv- Stuttgart, Kyiv-Budapest-Vienna) and three internal ones (Kyiv-Odesa-Zatoka, Kyiv-Lviv, Kyiv-Uzhgorod).
The bus operator FlixBus launches two new international trips from Ukraine on the Kyiv-Krakow-Prague and Kyiv-Vilnius routes. The press service of the company said the Kyiv-Vilnius bus departs daily from Kyiv at 19:20 and arrives at Vilnius airport at 08:40, and then at the bus station at 09:05. Departure from Vilnius is at 21:30, then check-in at the airport of the Lithuanian capital, and arrival in Kyiv at 11:50 the next day. The carrier is the Lithuanian company Ollex. The line route is Kyiv-Chernihiv-Vilnius.
“In recent years, Lithuania has become a popular tourist destination for Ukrainians. According to the statistics department of the Republic of Lithuania, 44% more Ukrainians arrived in Lithuania last year than in 2018. This is the highest increase among visitors from all countries. And although today the pandemic is bringing its limitations, in the long term, the growth of tourism from Ukraine to Lithuania will continue. Now you can get to Vilnius simply and at an affordable price by a comfortable bus, and then, by making one change – across the Baltic countries,” the press service said citing FlixBus Director in Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic States Michal Leman.
The report notes that FlixBus launched its network in the Baltic countries, namely Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in early July. The company currently offers daily trips from Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius to more than ten other Baltic cities.
Тhe international bus carrier Ecolines, which includes the Ukrainian carrier Autolux, resumes traffic from Kyiv to Moscow from July 9.
According to the company’s website, also from July 11, the carrier will resume trips from Kyiv to St. Petersburg.
As reported, Ecolines launched trips from Kyiv to Wroclaw on June 22, from Kyiv and Odesa to Minsk on June 25, from Kyiv to Gdansk and Torun on June 25, and to Zielona Gora on July 1.
The bus operator FlixBus (Germany) will resume operations in Ukraine on separate international routes from June 25.
According to the company’s press service, tickets are already on sale for trips from Kyiv via Zhytomyr, Rivne, Lviv, Uzhgorod to Krakow, Budapest, Vienna and more than a dozen German cities, and from July 3 green branded buses will travel from Odesa via Vinnytsia, Khmelnytsky and Ternopil to Plzen through Prague.
“So far we have renewed part of our routes from Ukraine, but we plan to gradually restore them all. Closing the borders has become a challenge for the entire industry of international transportation, but even taking into account severe restrictions on the borders with the EU countries that exist now, we see a demand for trips to the countries of Europe. First of all, these are Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic,” the press service said citing director of FlixBus in Ukraine and Poland Michal Leman.
The Ecolines international bus service, which includes the Ukrainian Autolux service, will resume trips from Kyiv to Warsaw and Szczecin (Poland) starting from June 18.
As the company’s press service told Interfax-Ukraine, the company will gradually resume trips on other international routes.
Moreover, the company said that Autolux has already resumed regular bus service from Kyiv to Odesa, Zaporizhia, Kharkiv, Poltava, Kherson and Kropyvnytsky.
“There is a demand for routes in the western direction, but so far we cannot start trips to Lviv due to the epidemiological situation in the region,” the company said.
