site.btaRuse Mayor Calls for Good Traffic Organization at Danube Bridge as Trucks Queue to Cross amid Repair Works

Repairs to the Danube Bridge between Bulgaria's Ruse and Romania's Giurgiu have resumed and ever more trucks queue to cross, said Ruse Mayor Pencho Milkov on Thursday. "We need to organise them well so that they can get through", he underscored. On Wednesday afternoon and evening, queues of trucks formed in the area of ​​the border crossing, with the Municipality organising procedures for permanent monitoring of the traffic.

“This happens when the conductivity of the bridge is not enough for all the vehicles to pass. In addition to the traffic from Romania to Bulgaria, the passenger car traffic from Bulgaria to Romania is matched with truck traffic, and accordingly, when these minutes are not enough for all arriving vehicles to pass, a traffic jam occurs," Milkov stressed.

"Our border officers are doing everything possible inside the border area to deal with incoming trucks. Otherwise, there is undoubtedly an improvement in permeability," he noted. He recalled that no charges are taken from the drivers to join the so-called virtual queue, where drivers have a choice of where to wait their turn in a designated area after taking a number.

Milkov pointed out that there are 17 legal parking lots on the territory of Ruse Municipality, as well as several large parking lots at gas stations. "Three to four years ago, during my conversations with the Transport Ministry, it was said that the State will develop a digital system similar to that of airports, which would allow trucks entering the country to be numbered and to approach the border checkpoint by number", he said, adding that the company which has built and implemented such a system is obliged to replace it the moment the State develops a similar system.

He underscored that Ruse Municipality is getting BGN 2.2 million from the work on the buffer parking lot for trucks. "These funds enter the local budget of the Municipality and are spent on the costs of local activities, which are wide-ranging. Now, when renting out the parking lot built by the Municipality, the income per month should be, I think, a little over BGN 18,000, and these funds will go to sports, as that is an explicit decision of the Municipal Council," Milkov explained.