Sergei Sobyanin inaugurates new electric bus garage in Mitino

Sergei Sobyanin inaugurated a new electric bus garage in Mitino.

“My congratulations on the Moscow Transport Day. For the holiday, we have opened a new electric bus garage in Moscow; this is a specialized large facility to maintain electric buses. Today we have already got 1,100 such vehicles. In the next year and a half, we are going to add more, so there will be about 2,400 e-buses. We intend that in five years electric buses will make up two-thirds of the fleet in Moscow, in Mosgortrans. This makes Moscow is one of the world’s pioneers with electric buses making up a significant part of ground transport,” said the Moscow Mayor.

On the opening day, the electric bus garage offered a tour for local residents, this to be a frequent occasion in the future.

The construction kicked off in Mitino in 2021: the garage funded under the Moscow Target Investment Program was launched on July 3. The new electric bus garage is designed for storage, technical operation, maintenance and repair of up to 300 large electric buses. Located on a 9.4 hectare plot, its facilities occupy a total area of approx. 23,000 square meters.

Since July 6, the garage has maintained the first 20 electric buses, to serve routes 328 (Mir Mitino residential complex — Zenitchikov Street), 846 (4 th Mitino microdistrict — Mitino Metro station), and 240 (4 th Mitino microdistrict — Roslovka Street).

The garage has 210 charging points powered from 37 cutting-edge charging stations with a dynamic mapping system. The 11,300 m² engineering building has state-of-the-art equipment for maintaining and repairing electric buses

in addition to three lines of portable bus washers, a 860 m² check-up & technical point, an office and an amenity building with a dining room, locker rooms, and 5,400 m² comfortable resting rooms for drivers; the auxiliary building, in particular, intended for e-bas repairs, covering an area of 2,500 square meters. There is also necessary engineering infrastructure, including three transformer substations, a cleaner, and a flatwork.

With the full operational capacity, the Mitino electric bus garage will employ up to 550 people, while Maxim Liksutov, Deputy Moscow Mayor for Transport, says that preference will be given to local job applicants. “We offer very high social benefits and wages, that is why we expect that local residents will come, look and work for us,” the Deputy Mayor said.

Electric buses will be maintained by the manufacturer, i.e., KAMAZ PJSC, under 15-year life cycle contracts.

The Mitino electric bus garage will increase the number of electric buses on local routes, improve transport connectivity between the North-Western Administrative District and other Moscow areas, say nothing about making ground public transport more frequent and safer for local residents to enjoy even more convenient and faster traveling experience as waiting times will be on average 30 per cent shorter.

Today the North-Western Administrative District has 97 ground routes used by approx. 500,000 passengers per day. In the coming weeks, electric buses will run along routes C3 (Bratsevo — Roslovka Street), C11 (Tallinnskaya Street — 8 th Mitino microdistrict), H12 (4 th Mitino microdistrict — Kitay-Gorod Metro station), 337 (4 th Mitino microdistrict — 4 th Mitino microdistrict — circle line), and 959 (4 th Mitino microdistrict — Stockmann), to serve 23 routes and carry more than 43,000 passengers per day by the end of 2024.

“In fact, the entire north-west of the city will be covered by this e-bus fleet,” said the Moscow Mayor.

Mosgortrans operates over 1,100 electric buses that serve 79 ground routes, with 1,200 new e-buses (some of them are running along the routes to date) to be supplied in 2023–2024.

“Our buses are being enhanced all the time. The recently supplied electric buses have a fuel distance twice as much as those that came in the beginning. Just in case, they still had a diesel heater, in case of frosts, and the mileage was much shorter than that of today’s more advanced vehicles,” added Sergei Sobyanin.

Drivers confirm that the new buses are noiseless and produce no vibration, while the climate control system provides individually adjustable, comfortable air temperatures at any time of the year on board and, particularly, in the driver’s cab.

New electric buses coming under the 2023 contract have a 80 km more fuel distance, when charged; for the comfort of passengers, interiors have adaptive lighting with color changes from cold to warm, depending on the time of day, while the electric heater maintains the optimum temperature on board, minimizing the negative impact on the environment, and enlarged front route signs are better visible from afar.

The city has more than 200 ultra-fast charging stations for electric buses, with another 200 coming in 2023.