About twenty rented electric tricycles will be inserted into the urban transportation of the city of Pinar del Río, according to official sources.
The equipment “will be leased to qualified personnel to provide the service in the coming days,” says a newspaper report. Guerrilla.
The tricycles will have a capacity of six passengers and will have a charge in their batteries that will allow them to travel the road around 16 times a day, said Carlos Alberto Rodríguez González, director of Transportation in the province.
The official indicated that everyone will take two routes from the eastern region that bring people closer to places such as hospitals, educational and work centers, as well as the University of Medical Sciences.
Those who currently provide services in those areas “will be relocated to other busy sites such as the Coloma road and the roads to Luis Lazo and Viñales,” Rodríguez González added. The ticket price per customer will be 10 pesos for the entire journey, he said.
The incorporation of new electric tricycles in Pinar del Río is part of a bet by the Cuban government at a time when the country is suffering from a severe energy crisis and, in particular, a chronic fuel shortage.
High technology
As part of the government strategy, it was recently reported that the tricycles manufactured by the Camilo Cienfuegos Electronic Industry Company, of Havana, will have high technology, with screens for promotions and the possibility of offering their energy.
The vehicles will have “communication and dissemination systems through two screens and audio equipment,” he explained to Granma the general director of the entity, Edel Gómez.
Likewise, he explained, its three photovoltaic solar panels and the energy they accumulate will also serve to power “certain key points in a community, such as a small water pumping station.”
“High-tech” electric tricycles in Cuba with the capacity to offer energy
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This line of tricycles should “solve several problems in some communities with the use of efficient innovation,” added Gómez regarding the express request of President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez.
The transportation system with electric tricycles began in October 2020 in the Old Havana municipality with routes to Centro Habana and the National Bus Terminal, and was extended in 2022 with the inauguration of new bases in Boyeros, Guanabacoa and Playa.
The Ministry of Transportation has been betting for some years on the incorporation of electric means to public transportation. Currently, 183 electric tricycles are operated in the country, according to data from the head of the sector, Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila.
As pointed out Granma, These vehicles circulate on 29 routes in Havana. Until April, more than 1 million 300 thousand passengers had been transported with these means.
Cuba is going through one of the worst moments in recent years, being able to sustain only half of the passenger transportation it had five years ago. Public transportation only requires 40 million dollars annually, when the price of an articulated bus costs more than 200 thousand dollars, a locomotive 2 million, a small plane more than 30 million and a ferry more than 10 million.
