Moscow and Sao Paulo sign a memorandum of cooperation

The Moscow City Government and the City Hall of São Paulo (Brazil) signed a memorandum of co-operation. The document was signed by Maksim Liksutov, Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Transport and Industry, and Angela Vidal Martins Gandra, Municipal Secretary of São Paulo for International Relations.

The Memorandum provides for the development of mutually beneficial cooperation in the sphere of regular river passenger transport, including information partnership and exchange of experience in improving safety of operation and formation of sustainable and environmentally friendly mobility using electric vessels.

The parties also intend to develop a pilot project of an electric river passenger vessel for regular transport in the city of São Paulo.

"Regular electric transport routes have been operating in Moscow for almost 2 years and during this time have gained great popularity among residents and guests of the capital. This is a unique project not only for Russia, but also for the whole world. Innovative domestic electric vehicles have proved to be a fast, comfortable, reliable and safe way of travelling around the metropolis. We are happy to share our experience of launching water-based eco-friendly transport with our colleagues from São Paulo and to participate together in creating new solutions, as instructed by the Mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin", — said Maksim Liksutov.

"São Paulo is Moscow's sister city, so we are always ready to implement joint projects and share best practices. At the moment, the regular river transport of the Russian capital is of the greatest interest to us, and we would like to bring Moscow technologies to us. I hope that the signed memorandum will become the starting point of a great path of co-operation between our cities," — Angela Vidal Martins Gandra emphasised.

The Department of Transport and Road Transport Infrastructure Development of Moscow together with the University of the Moscow City Government organised a 10-day training course on intelligent transport systems for a delegation of specialists from the Secretariat of Urban Mobility and Transport of São Paulo. The programme included a topic on the peculiarities of river transport operation in the capital. In addition, the Brazilian colleagues studied the installation of road signs and signage, construction of traffic lights, integrated traffic management schemes, visited the Unified Dispatching Centre of the Moscow Metro and the Central Traffic Control Department.

Earlier, similar training courses were organised for transport officials from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Iraq.