Ukrainian market of public procurement of public transport gradually recovering – expert
Over the past year and a half (in fact, since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion), Ukrainian cities have purchased 73 public buses in the ProZorro public procurement system, Oleksandr Chernytsky, deputy director of Etalon Auto Trading House, said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine in Kyiv on Thursday.
At the same time, in 2022, the cities purchased 38 units of such vehicles (10 new and 28 used buses), and in the first half of 2023 - 35, including 24 new ones, the top manager specified.
"In the first half of 2022, with the start of the full-scale war, there was actually no market, but in the second half it began to gradually recover: cities resumed purchasing public transport, international financial organizations began to resume programs. Steps towards the restoration of the market are still barely visible, but there are already positive trends," said Chernytsky.
According to him, in ProZorro in 2022, new buses of a large class were not purchased, only small ones, while used ones were all of a large class. In 2023, out of 24 new, 10 large and 14 small buses were purchased, while used ones are all large.
Public buses of Ukrainian production accounted for 47% of the total number of purchased buses, while large-class buses were all of foreign manufacturers.
In addition, during this period (1.5 years) 27 trolleybuses were purchased, including 16 new ones, and 10 electric buses.
"We can say that the electric transport market has felt a second wind," Chernytsky summed up.
According to him, the Ukrainian public transport market is affected by several factors, both negative and positive. Among the positive ones, he noted, in particular, the supply of buses to cities as part of humanitarian assistance (about 250 units).
"The main negative objective factor is, of course, the war. But there are also subjective factors, in particular, insufficient quality monitoring of the market by the customer, when, for example, used foreign-made buses are purchased by cities at the price of new domestic ones," he said.
As an illustration, he cited a tender for the purchase of eight used Polish buses in Ivano-Frankivsk for almost UAH 64 million, that is, UAH 8 million per one, and recalled that Etalon approached the customer with a proposal to supply new buses for the same price.
