Yerevan moves toward fully electric public transport

Yerevan is preparing a major overhaul of its public transport system, with plans to transition toward a fully electric fleet in the coming years.

Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan, speaking at a City Council meeting on Tuesday, said that after the replacement of “Higer” brand buses, no other type of transport will be purchased for Yerevan’s public transport system except electric transport.

He said that new trolleybuses have a special place in the new public transport reform strategy. The city plans to acquire more than 20 additional trolleybuses.

The only remaining old rolling stock in the public transport system are the purple “Higer” buses, which will also soon be replaced.

Avinyan added that the purchase of electric buses is also being planned, and at the moment one of the issues under discussion by the government’s Investment Committee concerns electric buses.

“There are two proposals: the first is to purchase 250 electric buses of 18 meters in length. The second is, based on a new analysis, to buy 12-meter electric buses instead of 18-meter ones, but we will finalize all analyses later.

We will replace the ‘Higer’ buses, but not with non-electric transport. However, after that, Yerevan will not purchase any other type of public transport except electric vehicles. Our strategy is that, in the future, Yerevan should fully transition to electric transport,” the mayor said.

The Yerevan City Council, during the meeting, also approved a decision under the 2026 “Transport System Modernization” program to transfer 45 newly purchased Yutong ZK6128BEVG trolleybuses to the “Yerevan Electric Transport” CJSC without payment.

In procedural terms, this means the vehicles—valued at 4.326 billion AMD—are being formally donated by the municipality to the operating public transport company responsible for running the city’s trolleybus network.