Tram drivers in Odesa sent to retrain to drive buses

The Odesmiskelektrotrans utility company has sent 35 tram and trolleybus drivers to be retrained to drive regular buses.

According to the Center for Public Investigations, this was discussed during a meeting of the Standing Committee on Transport and Roads.

This refers to buses that are currently running around the city instead of electric vehicles, which are grounded due to the difficult situation with electricity. According to Mykola <b>Lytovchuk</b>, the head of the utility, the resumption of electric transport is planned for February 2026 at the earliest, but it depends entirely on the restoration of a stable power supply. As for driver retraining, it will take two to three weeks, after which they will replace drivers from other cities who are currently partially driving buses that have been transferred to the city.

Currently, 42 buses are operating on the city's social routes - 35 of which were provided by other cities, and some are staffed by drivers from the same cities. From time to time, cities themselves withdraw drivers and replace them with new ones.

As for the Odesmiskelectrotrans specialists, they are currently receiving two-thirds of their salary due to the downtime of the vehicles and do not receive bonuses. When the electric transport resumes, buses from other cities will partially return because they were lent out, and partially remain in the city garage.

On the morning of December 31, the head of the Odesa City Administration, Serhiy Lysak, said that due to a power shortage, trams and trolleybuses in Odesa were not working.

In the evening of the same day, the mayors of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi, and Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Senkevych, said they had sent buses to Odesa to replace the trams and trolleybuses that were not working due to the power shortage.

Earlier, Lysak said that the city was expecting 40 buses from various other cities, including 10 buses each from Lviv and Kropyvnytskyi communities, five buses each from Mykolaiv and Zhytomyr, and three buses each from Vinnytsia and Mariupol. The Bila Tserkva community also joined the support.

On the night of December 31, Russians attacked the residential, logistics, and energy infrastructure of Odesa Oblast. As a result of hits in one of the residential buildings, fires broke out in apartments from the second to the sixth floors. The facade on the fifth and sixth floors was partially destroyed. Six people were injured in the attack, including three children. The facades and glazing of several multi-storey residential buildings were also damaged.

Кирило Бойко