Bucharest’s mayor Sorin Oprescu recently admitted that almost all the trams in Bucharest should be replaced, as they are old and unsafe, reports local Digi24.

Some 80% of the trams in Romania’s capital should be scrapped as they are rusty, have no air conditioning and no facilities for travelers with disabilities.

The problem is that the City Hall’s budget can’t support renewing the urban transport company RATB’s fleet. An imported tram costs over EUR 2 million, double compared to a Romanian one.

However, Oprescu doesn’t like the Romanian solution as he doesn’t believe that the RATB plant can provide the necessary number of trams: “They say they want to make 20 trams per year. This is a joke. No large factory can build more than 15 trams per year.”

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com