Trolleybusses of Pyongyang
Backbone of public transportation
The capital of Pyongyang has multiple public transportation options to offer. There are Trolleybusses, Tram and Metro lines going through the city. The trolleybusses were easier to photograph even though I have some pictures coming of the Underground as well. The people usually line up at the stations to wait for the busses. Often the capacity of a single bus is not enough to get all waiting passengers aboard. So during rush hours the bus lines appeared to be running as doubles with 2 busses going into the same direction to satisfy the increased demand.
When the weather is nice this is probably no problem because it’s easy to plan ahead. But when the weather changes and people have to wait in the streets for 10-20 Minutes with no shelter nearby I can imagine things get annoying very soon. Even more so if you need to take the bus on a regular basis and you have to wait often.
Reliability and Pride
Many of the busses are produced in the DPRK and only some of the trolleys are imported from Czech or Hungary or reconstructed Diesel busses that were integrated into the line system. There is a fun fact about the busses and I remember the same to be true for trams as well. A vehicle that has successfully traveled 25.000 Kilometers a star is awarded. Some of the vehicles had more than 20 stars marking an overall of 500.000 Kilometers with a rumored peak at some even delivering more than 2.500.000 Kilometers in a lifetime.
The busses are frequent running (almost every 10 minutes) but for a foreigner it’s not easy to board them or to find out about the itinerary or routes. Nonetheless I was able to capture some shots of the vehicles and their temporary inhabitants.
