By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 10 May:
A number of international bus . . .[restrict]manufacturers from all over the world made presentations to Libyan officials at the Rixos Al-Nasr Hotel in Tripoli on 8-9 May. The event will be repeated on 10 May in Benghazi.
The event was organized by the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Local Government and the National Investment Company where over 20 companies made their case to be the suppliers to Libya for buses for mass transport system.
Libya suffers from the lack of any public transport system either within or between its major urban centers. Tripoli, its biggest city by far, suffers from traffic and parking problems which have increased since the Revolution as a result of the large number of people that have moved to the city because of the war effort.
Transport Minister Yousef Weheshy felt that ‘it was necessary to provide public transport to citizens within the cities. We contacted a number of manufacturers to display their technologies so as to see which where appropriate for the Libyan environment. We chose the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi as prototypes in view of the fact that the study for these two cities has already been done and still applies’.
‘This project will also include transport for university students’, he added.
The results of the presentations will be referred to the Ministry of Transport committe which will in turn decide its needs, create its tender document and refer its tender document to the Central Tenders Committe.
It is not expected that any decision will be taken prior to Libya’s June elections. [/restrict]