MPK Krakow announced in August that Pesa had been selected for the contract after a decision to exclude the manufacturer from the tender was overturned by Poland’s National Court of Appeal. Pesa had submitted the lowest-priced bid with an offer of Zlotys 427.4m ($US 117.5m), but MPK had sought to disqualify the company from the competition due to the late delivery of a previous order for Krakowiak LRVs.

In a statement on November 10, MPK confirmed it decision to place an order “worth nearly Zlotys 430m” with the second-placed bidder, Stadler-Solaris. “The fact that Pesa failed to deliver a Zlotys 29.9m guarantee was a surprise because Pesa confirmed in writing on November 9 that it had entered into a credit agreement and could use up to Zlotys 100m for the execution of this contract.”

MPK says Pesa has not sought to extend the October 20 deadline set for signing the contract.

The 32m-long LRVs must be delivered within 30 months and MPK will accept a maximum of three vehicles every two weeks. According to the original timeline, the deadline for exercising the option is October 31 2021, and deliveries must be completed by October 2023.

In 2015 MPK conducted a three-month trial with a Solaris Tramino LRV equipped with supercapacitors for catenary-free operation.