The Moscow region transportation department on Wednesday received the first 10 buses to be used at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, out of a total of 709 ordered from GAZ Group.
Mostransavto, the main public transportation operator in the Moscow Region, is to receive the rest of the vehicles by the end of the year. The company will be the main transport operator for the forthcoming Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games to be held in Sochi next year. After the games the buses will return to service passengers in the Moscow Region.
"The status of a supplier for the Sochi-2014 Olympics confirms our leadership in renewal of public transport in Russia, which includes participation in the biggest government projects," said Bo Andersson.
"In order to be in line with international commuter standards, the group has invested over 1.3 billion rubles in new bus model development and modernization of production facilities," he said, adding that new models of Golaz buses supplied by the order were specially designed for Sochi.
At the beginning of 2013, GAZ Group and the Mostransavto signed a contract worth more than 6 billion rubles ($180 million) to manufacture 282 Golaz 5251 interregional buses, including 150 specially equipped buses for the disabled, another 370 Golaz 6228 buses with extended passenger capacity, including 77 specially equipped and 57 smaller tourist Golaz 52911.
The buses, made at a factory in Golytsyno in the Moscow Region, are constructed in close cooperation with a leading Swedish automaker Scania. They will be built on Scania chassis, equipped with a robotized Scania Opticruse transmission and use the Swedish producer's Euro-4 and Euro-5 bus engines.
The vehicles will have Wi-Fi, Glonass satellite navigation and electronic information systems running both in Russian and English. For the sake of passenger safety, video cameras will be installed inside the buses.
Contact the author at a.panin@imedia.ru
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