Lithuania's simple route to emissions reductions

Kaunas, Lithuania’s second largest city, was one of 12 cities participating in the BUSTRIP project. The project, part-funded by the EU, was launched in 2005 to explore sustainable transport solutions in the Baltic region. It was formally closed in November 2007 at the Moving Sustainably Conference in Turku, Finland.

Stable ride
The city’s great advantage, which makes trolleybuses such a beneficial option in terms of sustainable transport, is that the electricity to power the trolleybus network is generated by the city’s hydro-electric power station.

Mindaugas Kucinovas, business development manager of Autrolis, says that hydro-electric powered trolleybuses “have zero emissions, the lowest possible consumption of non-renewable resources, low noise levels and offer a comfortable, stable ride.”

He says that a Kaunas trolleybus consumes less than half the energy required by a conventional diesel bus to do the same work. Moreover, on a per kilometre basis, the trolleybuses are one-third cheaper to run than the diesel alternatives.

Expansion plan
Kaunas has been operating trolleybuses since 1965. The city’s trolleybus company, Autrolis, now runs 176 of them on 16 routes, and carries 33 million passengers a year.

The city is currently trying to obtain central government approval for an €11 million expansion plan to add another 30 electrified km to the network and connect up the city’s largest residential area, Silainai. It is also hoping to obtain additional funding through the EU’s Civitas Plus programme.

Twice lucky
But Kucinovas is cautious about future expansion: “We are lucky that we have electrical powered public transport and we are twice lucky that trolleybus services are cheaper then ordinary diesel buses, but the main challenge we face going forward is that sustainable transport is still not very high on our government’s agenda.”