On September 24th, 2024, the city of Burgas and BurgasBus, Bulgaria hosted a delegation of Slovenian public passenger transport stakeholders and the regional development agency Gorenjska with the aim of presenting the strategic transition of public passenger transport from fossil fuels to zero-emission vehicles and smart digital information systems. The visit of the delegation was carried out as part of the activities of the ZCI – Zero-carbon infrastructure project, co-financed from the funds of the Interreg Europe program.
The company for public passenger transport in Burgas, BurgasBus, together with the city of Burgas in 2013, started to implement the strategy of introducing low-carbon mobility in public passenger transport. 80% of the financial resources for the implementation of the strategy were obtained from European investment projects, while the implementation of the strategy was partly financed also from municipal and national funds and partly from the public passenger transport company’s own funds.
Since the beginning of the project implementation, in their fleet of 150 diesel buses, 56 buses have been replaced with electric buses, 39 with methane buses and 22 with trolleybuses.
They still have 33 diesel buses, most of which are equipped with EURO 6 standard engines. Along with electric buses, they also purchased electric charging stations. Each bus has its own charging station and parking space. They built storage and filling stations for methane and a 1MW solar power plant. They are also waiting for funds to set up a storage tank to store excess electricity generated from the solar plant.
BurgasBus established an information center to manage the bus fleet and inform passengers and where the status and route of each bus is monitored.
Buses are equipped with a number of cameras monitoring the road in front of the bus, the driver’s cabin – monitoring the driver’s interaction with passengers and the purchase of tickets, which can be purchased by credit card, debit card or cash. In the passenger part of the bus, the cameras are intended to monitor the movements of passengers, safety and maintenance of order. All buses have an adapted entrance for disabled people and prams, with a drop-down platform.
For passengers, they have established application mobility as a service (MaaS), with which users can monitor the movements of individual buses and receive information in how many minutes the bus will arrive at the station.
The application also allows passengers to purchase tickets and validate the ticket with a QR code, as well as interact with the information center. The BurgasBus company is happy to say that passengers report a minute delay in the arrival or departure of the bus, which occurs due to a delay in data transmission. This type of interaction provides them with information about the system’s efficiency and the sensitivity of the users and the extent of the application’s use.
In 2016, they established a rapid bus line through the city of Burgas, which is connected to other city and suburban lines.
The frequency of bus services of the express bus line is every 5 minutes. Some other lines also have a frequency of every 5 or 12 minutes. The longest frequency is at 20 min. They also have a night line that runs all night. There are no safety challenges with the night line, as it is mostly used regularly by people who finish or start work at night. The flow of traffic and the speed of bus services are also regulated by smart signaling – traffic lights – in a separate traffic monitoring center.
For 27 years, they have been providing on-call door-to-door transportation for the physically challenged.
From Slovenia, a representative of DUJPP, a representative of ARRIVA Slovenia and two representatives of the Regional Development Agency of Gorenjska took part in the professional exchange of knowledge.
