According to data from two of the cameras of the bus that crashed on "Tsarigradsko Shose" It can be seen that after another vehicle passed by, shaking and generally strange movements of the rear part of the bus began, Ivan Takov, the chairman of the Transport Commission of the Sofia Municipal Council (SOC), told BNT.
"According to my information, of the three cameras inside the vehicle, only two of them have processed the material and the data is, yes, indeed, that another bus passed by and then shaking and generally strange movements of the rear part of the bus began before the accident occurred, and here, in the course of the investigation, it must be established whether this is really a technical malfunction, a human error, or irregularities on the route itself, because this raises the bigger question, of course, about the infrastructure on which these vehicles travel, which, as we know, is in a terrible state in almost all of Sofia," Takov said.
He described the condition of the guardrails in Sofia.
"The situation is tragic. In Sofia, anyway, you know that there are speed limits. As far as I know, there is no requirement for highway facilities here, but as you can see, in this case, only the concrete barrier saved the situation from a much more serious accident that could have happened. Then we would have had a completely different conversation," added Takov.
According to Takov, the GPS data shows that the bus was driving immediately before the accident at about 70 km. per hour, which, although within the permissible speed for "Tsarigradsko Shose", for this rather outdated technique, may be a bit high. He reiterated that the crashed bus is 23 years old and already has over 1 million km.
"This is truly an outdated piece of equipment and it is good to say that there are 39 more of the same model of buses, and in total there are about 110 over 20 years old currently in operation on the lines of the capital's transport system. And from there, of course, comes the need, the blatant need, to replace this fleet, which has been one of our priorities and my personal one since the beginning of the mandate we are working on and we have had such a report since the beginning of 2024 for the replacement of all these old buses," he added.
I really hope that by the end of this mandate, the citizens of Sofia will receive not only new buses, but also new trolleybuses, new electric buses, added the chairman of the transport committee.