Russia’s first eco-taxi service launches operations in resort city of Sochi

SOCHI, October 19. /TASS/. Russia’s first environmentally friendly taxi service or eco-taxi has been launched in the Olympic Park of the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, a chief executive of the major local company in charge of construction and maintenance of Olympic infrastructure in Sochi told TASS on Monday. Valery Danchenko, the director general of the Center Omega company, said electormobile taxies are serving visitors from hotels located on the coastal area to the Olympic facilities, built for 2014 Winter Games. "Besides transfers of the resort’s guests on eco-cars within the Olympic Park and on the racing track Sochi Autodrom, we are introducing a pilot project, which is Russia’s first ever eco-taxi service using electormobiles Mitsubishi I-MiEV," Danchenko said in an interview with TASS. An introduction of the environmentally-friendly transportation is one of the Olympic Park’s concept elements to take care of the health of visiting tourists in the resort and protect the environment. An electricity-powered vehicle is capable of covering a distance of 150 kilometers (over 93 miles) per single battery’s charge with a maximum speed of 130 kilometers per hour (80 mph). It requires the 220 volts electricity system the car and eight hours for the complete charge of the battery. A net of mobile charging stations is planned to be set up in the nearest future in the Imereti lowlands of Sochi, near the Olympic Park, to significantly reduce the charging time, particularly to 25-30 minutes for a battery’s complete charge. In February and March of 2014 Russia’s Black Sea resort city of Sochi hosted Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, which, according to international sports officials, athletes and visitors, were organized at the highest level possible and provided up-to-date infrastructure at all levels as well as security for all participants in the event. Sochi was also the venue for another global prestigious sports event last year, when over 166,000 people, including at least 500 high-ranking guests from Russia and abroad, visited the resort city between October 10 and 12 for Russia’s first ever Formula One Grand Prix. Earlier this month, Sochi Autodrom once again hosted Formula One Russia Grand Prix and, according to organizers, up to 150,000 visited the event throughout the racing weekend on October 8-11. Late last year Sochi Autodrom was awarded the trophy of the Formula One’s best racing track in the 2014 season. The Race Promoters' Trophy is a rotating award and engraved on it are the names of other F1 best racing tracks starting from 1975. The trophy will remain in Sochi throughout 2015 until the new best racing track will be announced at the end of this season. Read more