Measures to avoid winter chaos won’t be completed until after winter

Oslo’s public transport provider Ruter recently announced measures to avoid a repeat of last year’s chaos during the winter.

Among the measures is installing biofuel heaters on the buses to preserve the batteries of the electric bus fleet.

However, one of the bus providers, Unibuss, has confirmed to science and tech news outlet Teknisk Ukeblad that this work won’t be complete until the spring.

“Given that we manage approximately 25 buses per month, final completion will be the second quarter of 2025,” Glenn-Ivar Gaalaas, who is head of fleet and infrastructure at Unibuss, told Teknisk Ukeblad.

The government announces money to cut train delays

Some 2.9 billion kroner of extra spending has been proposed by the government to try and cut down on train delays.

“Unfortunately, it takes time to fix. But the long-term goal is for us to get more trains on the route,” Transport Minister Jon-Ivar Nygård told public broadcaster NRK.

In total, 12 billion kroner will spent on upgrading and repairing Norway’s railway infrastructure.

“It is because we have seen that Norwegian railways’ major challenge is that there is a backlog on the maintenance side. We have too many challenges with delays and cancellations,” he said.

A municipality in northern Norway wants to remove Russian signs

The mayor of Sør-Varanger wants to remove the Russian signs in the town of Kirknes in northern Norway.

The town has had a mix of both Russian and Norwegian street signs for over 20 years.

“It is just as natural for us to look to Finland and rather have street signs in Finnish. They are also our neighbours and now a new NATO member,” Magnus Mæland, the mayor of Sør-Varanger, told the newspaper Klassekampen.

He also wants to host NATO exercises in the area.

Oslo boys perform worse than girls academically

Boys in Oslo have worse average grades than girls in almost all secondary schools (ungdomsskole), new figures have revealed.

Girls also had higher average grades than boys too nationally, the newspaper Aftenposten reports.