DRESDEN city transport operator DVB, together with the city of Dresden and the state of Saxony, are negotiating a deal with manufacturer Alstom to supply seven Flexity NGT DX DD LRVs for the German city’s light rail network.
Three of the LRVs, each with a length of 43.5m and capacity for 290 passengers, are already on order and should be delivered this summer. These vehicles, along with a further seven which are due to be ordered shortly, are an option on a €197m contract signed by DVB in August 2019 for 30 LRVs. These were built in the nearby towns of Görlitz and Bautzen and are all now in service.
DVB is progressively modernising the Dresden network for the wide-bodied Flexity vehicles, which are 350mm wider than other LRVs currently in service, with infrastructure work now around 75% complete. The newly-ordered Flexity LRVs are expected to operate on the heavily-used Line 7, though various parts of the route still need to be adapted for the wider body width.
In the Romanian city of Timisoara, public transport operator STPT has ordered 17 battery-powered LRVs from Turkish manufacturer Bozankaya. The 30m-long vehicles, with capacity for 251 passengers and a range of 70km on a single charge, are due for delivery by the end of this year.
The contract was agreed at a price of €33m, or around €1.9m per LRV, with funding provided by Romania’s European Union-backed National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).
Bozankaya has already delivered 18 out of a potential 21 LRVs under a framework agreement signed in 2019.
Škoda has signed an eight-year contract with Prague city transport operator DPP for up to 200 new Škoda ForCity Plus Praha 52T LRVs. The Koruna 16.6bn ($US 720m) deal was originally announced last November and the first vehicles are due to be delivered to the Czech capital by the end of 2025.
