site.btaHeavy Truck Traffic at Border Checkpoint near Ruse

Truck traffic to and from Romania is very heavy at the Danube Bridge border checkpoint near Ruse, with waiting time of about 18 hours, border officials said on Friday. About 40 trucks are waiting in the border zone area, while other trucks are waiting mainly in the buffer parking lot, which is also almost full.

Yordan Tenev, travelling from Bulgaria to Finland, shared his experience: "I arrived at the parking lot in Ruse at 6:40 pm Thursday and waited until 11:30 am Friday. The traffic is very heavy. Sometimes it’s quick, taking only an hour or two, but other times it takes much longer. Being a truck driver is easy if you're determined."

Nikolay Pantov, travelling to Bucharest, told BTA: "It’s terrible. Lots of waiting. I arrived at 6:30 pm yesterday [Thursday] and still haven't crossed. Our job is not hard, but with these borders, nothing is moving smoothly."

The officials said a total of 3,203 trucks crossed the border at the Danube Bridge near Ruse in both directions in the last 24 hours. Of these, 1,620 were inbound and 1,583 were outbound.

Truck traffic is expected to be extremely heavy in the coming days due to the recent suspension of the processing of cargo vehicles on the Turkish side of the Lesovo and Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoints for the introduction of a new information system, as well as the increase in deliveries ahead of the holidays.