In July 2016 Transportnaya Koncessionnaya Kompanya (TKK), a consortium of Lider Group and LSR Group, was awarded a 30-year build-operate-transfer concession to develop the network.

TKK will invest around Roubles 33.7bn ($US 540m) over the 30-year term of the concession, upgrading 14km of tramway used by lines 7, 8, 10, 30 and 64 to fast tram standards. The city of St Petersburg is contributing Roubles 1.3bn towards the project.

As part of the project, TKK has acquired 23 bidirectional Metelitsa trams from Stadler Minsk. The three-section low-floor vehicles are 33.45m-long with five sets of double doors on each side. Each vehicle accommodates 376 passengers, 66 of them seated.

Travel will be free-of-charge for the remainder of March.