Bus

Categories / City Services/Transportation/Municipal Transportation
BUS, the most mobile type of city public transport, provides cost-effective route planning and is extremely flexible to changes in the route network. The first attempt to organize "motorized omnibus" service goes back to the 1880s. The first bus ("motor omnibus") drove along the streets of St. Petersburg on 4 October 1907. The first route (from Alexander Garden to Baltiysky Railway Station) was laid out by engineer B.A. Ivanov on 11 November 1907. By 1910 the bus park of the city consisted of 14 vehicles of Lessner and Russo-Balt models. Buses were a private business and had not become widespread. By 1914 the bus traffic in St. Petersburg was phased out, resuming on 24 December 1926 along the route from Uritskogo Square (Palace Square) to Zagorodny Avenue to Vosstaniya Square (with five vehicles, with German-made Fomag chassis, 26 seats in each). In the 1930s, the bus fleet received Soviet-made vehicles produced by AMO Automobile plant (since 1931 renamed ZIS, Stalin Plant) and YaAZ (Yaroslavl Automobile Plant). YA-2 giant bus with 100 seats was put into operation in 1934. By 1940 there were 30 bus routes were in Leningrad, including suburban destinations, the bus fleet had 220 vehicles. During the Siege of 1941-44, buses were used for evacuation of residents, army transportation, and transportation ammunition and provisions cargoes. The city bus traffic was resumed in 1945. ZIS-155 (from 1947 to the early 1960s), ZIS-158 (called ZIL since 1960; from 1957 to the early 1980s), LiAZ (from 1960 to the early 1980s) were the most popular makes of the bus. From the early 1980s there appeared Icarus buses made in Hungary which by 2003 formed the majority of St. Petersburg bus fleet. In 1990, the bus fleet consisted of 3,200 vehicles, servicing some 200 city routes. In the 1990s, the number of routes decreased to 100, and the number of vehicles - to 1,700. The annual transportation volume saw reduction from 1 bill. 78 million people (in 1990) to 600 million people (in 2000). T and K class commercial buses appeared in St. Petersburg in 1995. The technical maintenance of buses is carried out by bus parks.

A. P. Zhukovsky. Ivanov Boris Alexeevich
Dvortsovaya Square/Saint Petersburg, city
Vosstaniya Square/Saint Petersburg, city
Zagorodny Avenue/Saint Petersburg, city
Baltiysky Railway Station
1926
1907