Irkutsk Again Included in Ten Worst Public Transport Cities
Irkutsk has entered the top-10 cities in Russia with the lowest quality of public transport for 2025. The list was compiled and published on his Telegram channel by Ilya Zotov, a member of the public council at the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation and chairman of the All-Russian Passenger Association.
The selection is based on the personal opinion of the activist, after he personally visited all the listed cities, saw how public transport works there, and also assessed it using a certain methodology.
Irkutsk was already among the worst performers in July 2025, and by the end of the year it remained in the same top ten, along with Ulyanovsk, Ivanovo, Makhachkala, Oryol, Rostov-on-Don, Orenburg, Barnaul, Chita, and Abakan. But among Siberian cities, there is one that made it to the top ten best — this is Krasnoyarsk.
«I urge with this list to draw close attention of all relevant authorities to these cities to provide them with comprehensive support, since residents of the entire country deserve accessible and comfortable transport,» wrote Ilya Zotov.
Recall that at the end of May 2024, Ilya Zotov visited Irkutsk and afterward wrote in his channel that almost nothing good can be said about our public transport. Among the main problems, he highlighted dirty buses, lack of visual and audio information, as well as display of vehicles in the «Yandex.Maps» application. Moreover, the rolling stock of many private carriers, in Zotov«s opinion, »should have been scrapped yesterday.«
The activist also had issues with the railway station square and the airport. Zotov did not see «work by the city and region on transport development.»
He visited the city again in the summer of 2025, when he met with Maxim Lobanov, the Minister of Transport and Road Infrastructure of Irkutsk Region, and discussed the situation with transport accessibility of municipal formations in the region.
«I am glad that there is finally a concrete understanding of further actions and steps in solving problematic issues of passenger transportation. We discussed during the working meeting the situation in all districts, the state of transport in the capital of the subject, aviation accessibility, and more,» Zotov wrote then, adding that he supports plans to transfer transport authority from the city to the region, increase requirements for carriers and unified quality standards, improve transparency of transportation and update transport, as well as qualitative changes in infrastructure and tariffs.
«If everything we talked about and discussed is implemented, then the transport situation will begin to change for the better. We will try to develop a roadmap for joint actions to step by step move together towards more efficient transport,» noted the activist.
Earlier it became known that specialists from the Moscow Research Institute of Automobile Transport (NIIAT) developed a concept for the development of public transport in Irkutsk. During its compilation, experts gave their assessment of the state of the transport sector in the city, as well as suggested ways to improve the situation. The interim versions of the study did not satisfy everyone by far, including many Irkutsk residents were not delighted.
