Next European city introduces trolleybus system
New trolleybus in Lecce
The person responsible for the trolleybus operation in the Italian city of Lecce, Pasquale Borelli, was optimistic that the new means of transport will be received very well and that the expected ridership will be achieved after the three-month period of free usage and that the system will be more economical in operation than has lately been enumerated by the media.
On Thursday, 12.1.2012, operation of trolleybus line 29, i.e. future line 3, which will eventually be about 5 km long, started after about 1700 days of delay. The official start was at 6:30 in Via Calasso. The schedule of the new line offers 15-minute intervals and it will exclusively be operated by trolleybuses. A whole cycle lasts 45 minutes. With its high frequency, which has on bus routes so far only been offered on the line to the university grounds, it attempts to reach the target of 13,000 passengers per day. Furthermore, a three-month period of free rides is supposed to bring the operator closer to this ambitious goal. Until now, buses in Lecce only carried 8,000 passengers per day.
One of the reasons for the delayed launch were supposedly the missing driver’s licenses, as the responsibility for issuing them was not clearly regulated.
Mr Borelli reckons that throughout the world, more means of transport with infrastructure are being built: trolleybus, tram, metro. For a metro, about 1 million inhabitants are requisite, Lecce is too small for that, but a trolleybus system is certainly a transport means of the future! The advantages of the trolleybus compared to a regular diesel bus are clear: less noise and less vibrations. He is convinced that the new means of transport will be widely accepted also for these reasons.
Source: Trolleymotion; Photo credits: J. Lehmann
