The FINANCIAL — Over six million inhabitants of 12 cities in Ukraine are benefiting from better and more comfortable public transport thanks to the introduction of almost 400 new trolleybuses financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
The modern, low-floor, energy-efficient and environmentally friendly trolleybuses are also contributing significantly to improvements in the safety and efficiency of public transport in Ukraine.
The procurement of the buses and related infrastructure improvements was financed under the EBRD’s Ukraine Public Transport Frameworks (UPTF) I and II, in agreements signed in 2015 and 2019 respectively for a total volume of €350 million.
Under the agreement, the municipalities of Dnipro, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kremenchuk, Kryvyi Rih, Lviv, Mariupol, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Poltava and Zhytomyr were able to renew almost their entire trolleybus fleets and to promote an important shift from outdated private minibuses to comfortable public transport.
In the municipalities of Dnipro, Kremenchuk and Mariupol the EBRD financed the procurement of 35 trolleybuses that have an auxiliary power unit allowing them to provide transport services in isolated or remote areas where the catenary power network is currently unavailable.
Supporting the replacement of obsolete rolling stock in Ukrainian cities, the EBRD also financed key infrastructure improvements including specialised maintenance and diagnostic equipment as well as the modernisation of depots, traction substations and the catenary network.
The UPTF projects are providing substantial environmental improvements in all municipalities where they have been implemented. Each year they help to significantly reduce CO2 emissions.
The Ukraine Public Transport Frameworks also attracted almost €10 million of Clean Technology Fund (CTF) loans and grant funding of up to €2.6 million, including technical assistance from the Eastern Europe Energy Efficiency and Environment Partnership (E5P), to which the European Union is the largest contributor.
The EBRD is the largest international financial investor in Ukraine. To date, the Bank has made a cumulative commitment of almost €14.5 billion through 479 projects in the country.
