Cuba Introduces Initiatives in Passenger Transportation

The incorporation of Buses Diana and the vehicles known as semi-buses are some of the initiatives implemented today in Cuba to improve the transportation of passengers in all the provinces of the country. In the case of the Diana buses, they are part of a program begun in 2012 by the Ministry of Transport (Mitrans) as investor and the Ministry of Industry as executor,

through which some 310 units have been manufactured to this date.

Mitrans officials in the island informed this Tuesday that such vehicles have been put on the road to give this service to the population and as of 2015 it is expected that in 2015 another 310 vehicles will be put in use.

Minister Cesar Arocha advanced to Prensa Latina that in a lapse of five years they expect to manufacture two thousand 900 vehicles of the Diana brand, which could satisfy inter-urban transportation needs of the nation.

According to the Minister, these buses operate in all the territories of the island, with the only exception of the Havana and Santiago de Cuba provinces, where bigger vehicles are used, both rigid and articulated ones.

In the case of semi-buses, their debut started in 2010 with the aim of guaranteeing a group of vehicles for the transportations between municipalities and rural areas in the western province of Pinar del Rio, but the proposal later extended to all the island.

At the end of last October, 617 units had been manufactured, while next year they expect to manufacture another 50 vehicles, says a report presented by the parliamentary Commission of Attention to Services.

The semi-buses have an impact, above all, in mountainous localities, that is why its greater impact is in Pinar del Rio and the eastern provinces, explained Arocha.

According to the Mkinister, the program of those transportation vehicles has been made based on the recovery of all those trucks that are not in use with effectivity to remotorize them, adapt trucks with booths for passengers.

For 2015, we want to concentrate on making semi-buses of double and triple traction, to be able to reach zones where now access is more difficult, the official said after telling the deputies participating in the debates of the 6th Ordinary Session of the 8th Legislature of the National Assembly of the People´s Power, being held from today at the Havana Convention Center.