Assessment of development prospect of the electric public transportation system in Irkutsk

Irkutsk has extremely favourable conditions for developing its electric public transportation system. The cost of power production in Irkutsk is one of the lowest ones in the world. Thereby, this situation in the regional power market creates conditions favourable for the further development of the electric public transportation system. In 2008, the Transport Laboratory of ISTU developed a transportation master plan of Irkutsk. The goal of the project was to forecast the traffic and passenger flow distribution up to 2020. Based on modelling results, the data argues the importance of the trolleybus network development. Fortunately, the length of the new infrastructure, which is necessary for trolleybus network development, does not exceed 4 km. Data forecasts indicate that the proposed public transport network is not only rather effective, but also can considerably improve economic indexes of the electric public transportation system in Irkutsk.