At a press briefing, the chief of the Transport Department of Samarkand province Akobir Ashurov provided information on steps aimed at developing the transport and communal services and public transport infrastructure.
The conclusion was approved of the commission: "Determination of compliance with traffic safety for routes to be opened in the province" regarding the organization of 8 new roads and 33 access roads provided for by the general plan, - A. Ashurov said. The degree of duplication of city bus routes will be reduced by 40%, and with the release of modern buses and electric buses on new routes, 2 taxi routes and more than 20 bus routes in Samarkand will be closed, and the rest will be optimized.
In order to update the traffic structure with modern buses of large and medium capacity with all amenities, large-capacity buses of Chinese production are placed on urban public transport routes. The 20 buses introduced at the first stage serve passengers on three newly created routes.
According to A. Ashurov, with the help of an automated payment system, a system has been established to cover the difference between the cost of transporting each passenger and the limit tariff for carriers serving the public transport routes. By November 2022, documents have been submitted to the local council of deputies for a subsidy in the amount of 1 billion 370 million soums for companies transporting passengers by buses on suburban routes, and 717 million 480 thousand soums have been paid to carriers.
A $95 million project is being implemented between the Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade, the governor office of Samarkand province and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to purchase 350 electric buses for public transport in Samarkand and create related infrastructure. At the moment, the State-owned Enterprise "Samarkand Passenger Transport" under the provincial transport department is taking steps on the delivery of electric buses. In particular, international tender processes for the purchase of the first 100 electric buses have started.
