“In the Athens Metro we have line 1, which is the old electric line, and there we have 19 trains, four of which have not had air conditioning for 25 years, it is not a current phenomenon,” Infrastructure Minister Christos Staikouras told ERTNEWS.

“The other 15 have air conditioning, but you know that there are frequent stops, the windows are opened, so the performance is not appropriate. On Lines 2 and 3 we have 52 trains, 20 of them from the construction have no air conditioning. The conclusion is that we have 24 trains that we need to put air conditioning, at a cost of about 39 to 40 million euros. Resources are being sought, it is a priority,” he said.

Train “refresh”

Referring to the renewal of trains, he said that 14 trains on Line 1 will be renewed. “There has been a contract since December 2022 with a Spanish company as the contractor. The first wagon has been transferred to Volos in June 2023 and since then the private party, the contractor company, has requested a price change and a change in the schedule because of the increase in materials, that is, the crisis it is facing,” he said.

He said “STASY has taken it to the Court of Audit with the expectation of having fourteen new trains, with air conditioning, by the end of 2025.

-The escalators and elevators in the Metro are 15 to 25 years old
-They and their maintenance often present a problem. I will never forget that in the Marathon that took place in Athens the elevator in Syntagma broke down and the employees of STASY had to help our compatriots with mobility problems to climb the stairs.
-The cost of replacing them is about 20 million, and these resources are being sought.
-We are trying to improve the daily life of the citizen in the Metro in terms of air conditioning, escalators and lifts, a project of about 60 million euros. This will take 12 months.

Thessaloniki Metro

Referring to Thessaloniki Metro, he assured that the 13 stations and trains will be delivered in November 2024 and the extensions to Kalamaria, + 5 stations, in the second half of 2025. There will be exact date announcements soon.

“Yesterday we had a meeting in Thessaloniki, on the occasion of our visit for the inauguration of the electric bus charging station, for the progress of the Fly Over the coordination that is, to see how we can limit the actual and expected adverse effects on the daily life of our compatriots.

According to the contractor, now for the first time the fronts have been assigned, they are working as they said full speed, they have 200 workers and 50 heavy vehicles, the goal remains the same, the project will be completed in 2027,” he said.

Electric buses

Referring to the electric bus charging station inaugurated yesterday, he said it is a project not only for the present but also for the future.

“I recall that there are 110 electric buses on the streets of Thessaloniki. This for Thessaloniki, the positive footprint, is more visible compared to Athens, because the ratio of the fleet, as you understand 140 electric buses in Athens, 110 electric buses in Thessaloniki is much more important.

One third of the bus fleet in Thessaloniki is now electric. The charging station we inaugurated yesterday is capable of charging 110 electric buses at the same time.

There has been provision for the next tender of 700 buses these days and the tender in October for Athens and Thessaloniki, where there will be about another 200 buses for Thessaloniki.

There will also be a change of 200 trolleybuses, and for the first time there will be a provision for 50 to 100 hydrogen buses, to get into this fuel that is starting to be a priority at the European level.

250 electric buses are on the streets of Athens and Thessaloniki today.

Charging stations are ready in Thessaloniki.”

“In Athens the new charging station will be ready in the next few weeks. There are chargers, but the charging station will be ready in the next few weeks because of some additional information requested by the Court of Auditors.

In Thessaloniki it was, I will say it quite simply, an open field and we made a charging station there, in Athens it will be in the existing depots.

Last week the Court of Audit approved a tender for 211 new diesel buses in East and West Attica.

I estimate that by this summer and certainly by the end of 2024 there will be 211 new buses in East and West Attica. Contractor company six bus companies in the country and two tourist agencies.

I say this because many times when we say give the buses to private companies, we need to know who has the interest inside and outside Greece.

We have two tenders, with French and with Italians for 300 gas buses in Athens, 100 of them are 18 meters, 200 are 12 meters

These tenders are finished, they have been signed, we estimate that we will have the first buses in September to October, certainly by the end of 2025 we will have all 300 buses.

So by the end of 2025 we will have 250 and 211 and 300, 761 new buses.

On top of that, which is a new fleet, by the end of 2025 we will have a new tender for 700 additional buses, so we will have additional primarily electric buses by the end of 2027.

So firstly, a complete renewal of the bus fleet and a strengthening of the routes.

Because it is not enough just to renew the buses, which is a significant improvement in the quality of service, the bus must also go on more frequent routes,” the transport minister said.

Accessibility

Referring to accessibility, he said he was sorry to say it, but 39 percent of the bus fleet in Athens is not accessible for the disabled.

“All new buses will be accessible for the disabled,” he said.

He said “we will try to strike a balance between improving the quality and frequency of the routes, so we will withdraw the old ones, but not in equal numbers of those that enter the routes, because this way we will not improve the routes.

We will therefore try to add up a little bit of forces and gradually withdraw the older ones.

And just to give you a number to understand, the average age of buses in Athens is 19 years in Europe 12 years.
For the first time buses were procured in Athens since 2009. For various reasons, and because of the economic crisis primarily, we had not renewed our bus fleet since 2009.”

Fare evasion

Referring to fare evasion, he said that in Thessaloniki, three out of four people do not pay a fare. “In OASTH, in a company that is in special liquidation.

Here we have made the following move: from the Skaramanga shipyards we have taken 60 workers and are now training them to become auditors at the OSSY, so that we can strengthen the controls,” he said.

Motorways

Referring to the major road projects, he said the Aktion – Amvrakia project was given to traffic and so you can get to Lefkada from Athens in a little over three hours and “we have indeed delivered the E65 to Kalambaka”.

“By the end of 2025 the rest of the section from Kalambaka to Egnatia Odos will be finished. 56% of the northern section has already been completed.

In Patras – Pyrgos, 50% of the project has been implemented, 75 new kilometers, in the summer of 2025 the whole project will be delivered.

BOAK is progressing, the airport in Kasteli 35% of the project has been completed, there will be flights in 2027 in Kasteli.

The problem in Heraklion, Crete is acute. I went to Heraklion, Crete the other day for three hours and only stayed at the airport to see the daily life there.

It had 8.7 million passengers last year, plus 16% expected this year, we’re going for 9.2 million passengers when Thessaloniki has five and a half million, just to get an order of magnitude.”

Investments

“Last week I went, with the Prime Minister, to Lefkada to discuss the issue of water supply but also partly irrigation, because a very large project is starting for four regional units and three regions of the country that ends in Lefkada. We are tackling a serious water supply problem in Lefkada with new pipelines.

On 22 July we will go to Mytilene, where a dam will be built in Tsiknias.

These projects do not happen all of a sudden and we have to have the funding for them, as you can always see in every project, I’m presenting the amount, because it is easy to give out projects in the air, but if there is no funding, we end up, as has happened for example in Naxos, talking about dams that were planned in 1992, the project was tendered in 2011 and still in 2024 there is no dam.

And it goes without saying that in many of them there is not even a provision for connection to the networks.

Also, it’s not just about doing new projects, we need to address the maintenance of existing projects at some point. Whether we are talking about dams, bridges or roads, because we have seen what happened in Thessaly,” the minister said.

Safe trains

“We have not forgotten the trains, I just want to tell you, apart from the tragic accident you mentioned, later we had another problem, Daniel.

Whether you go by train, I often go Athens – Thessaloniki by train, after Domokos there is no double line, one line is completely gone.
You realize therefore that there need to be interventions of 463 million euros there, half a billion euros of Daniel’s damage to the railway alone. I leave out the roads and bridges which are 900 million.

These repairs are not done overnight, along with the corresponding safety systems. What I can tell you is that a lot of things are being done on the train. We have given 25 million for leveled crossings.

We are making a new organization for this purpose. Now in Greece we will no longer have OSE, ERGOSE, GAIAOSE, we will have a group, OSE and a private company.

This way there will be better coordination. We have sought resources from Europe and we are finding, I am optimistic, for the first time some funds for investments, so things are happening in OSE and people can trust the railway.

I travel often and the wagons especially to Thessaloniki many days are full. The point is that we must work all those involved in the transport chain to address the existing problems,” stressed Christos Staikouras.