OREANDA-NEWS. August 3, 2011. More and more Russian cities, the mayors of which care for environmental safety, acquire NEFAZ buses running on natural gas. Ryazan and Kazan are among such cities.  

Up-to-date NEFAZ buses have recently been delivered to Ryazan. It is noteworthy that people with disabilities can also use them. The new vehicles meet Euro 4 environmental standards, use methane as fuel, and feature GLONASS. The buses were purchased under a co-financing program from federal and municipal budgets.  

The first CNG NEFAZ bus has already started to carry passengers in Kazan. This comfortable bus is powered with a Euro 4 environmentally friendly engine.

The new model was presented to journalists. Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Transport and Communications of the Executive Committee of Kazan Nicholay Stukalov told that the administration of the city had started improving environmental performance of the public transport in 2007. The official emphasized that the new NEFAZ bus was the first Russian bus with a completely gas (not combined) engine which had started regularly travelling along a route in the city. It is just an experiment for the present. The bus will be tested in service for 3 months, both under hot and cold conditions. Then, the mayor will decide if the city needs to acquire more such buses or not.  

The NEFAZ-5299 bus is assembled on KAMAZ chassis at JSC  NEFAZ, a subsidiary of KAMAZ (Neftekamsk, Bashkortostan). The gas engine is installed by KAMAZ’s partner – LLC  RariTEK. 10 cylinders are mounted on the roof of the bus. There is enough room for wheelchair users in the passenger saloon, and also the bus features a retractable ramp for wheelchairs. Hatches are equipped with electric drives.