The city council of the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, wants to buy battery-electric buses on credit and shut down a 70-year-old trolleybus system. We don’t really know if this is the best solution. Maybe nobody knows. But what’s clear to us is that there’s only one vision of the future, justified by a Swiss consulting firm (that doesn’t even have a website).

Images: Ermek Jaenisch, 2024

We have two fundamental concerns. The first is that the very idea of replacing one electric bus with another electric bus seems strange. The second is our belief that foreign investment in a publicly owned company requires a wider range of voices. This may take time, but it will definitely improve the quality of the final decision and facilitate the implementation process.

We have decided to provide a platform for collecting visions for the future of Bishkek’s trolleybus system. We invite all interested participants to dream about how to spend 50 million euros on electric buses. After a simple registration you will see a short description of Bishkek’s transport system and an invitation to plan lines and stops in the city.