Almaty city public transport, ambulance and emergency, as well as engineering vehicles will get special traffic lanes by 2017, reported TV channel Almaty.
According to the channel’s report, the Kazakhstan Development Bank is ready to provide a loan to the city administration within the national campaign “Energy Efficient Kazakhstan.” This measure will also support the Sustainable Transport programme, aimed at improving the city’s urban infrastructure and passengers’ transportation system.
The city is also planning to build dedicated bike lanes and establish a light rail transit line in Almaty, which will travel at 26 kilometres per hour. Earlier, officials with the sustainable transport programme concluded that buses travel during rush hour at 13.8 kilometres per hour and that loading and unloading of bus passengers takes about 30 percent of the time of all trips.
Since Feb. 27, four city trolley buses with numbers 1263, 1212, 1202, 1243 as well as 212 street-cars have been equipped with free Wi-Fi, according to AlmatyElectroTrans press secretary Gaukhar Nokerbekova.
“If the first phase of the pilot project goes successfully, all city trolley buses will be equipped with free Wi-Fi. We are also planning to provide the same service for buses, however, the terms have not been defined yet,” said Nokerbekova.
Thus, the southern capital has become the latest city to provide Wi-Fi for public transport. The first city was Petropavlovsk in northern Kazakhstan, which added Wi-Fi in 2013. Petropavlovsk was also the first to offer innovative heated bus shelters to keep travelers more comfortable during northern Kazakhstan’s harsh winters.
