Belgrade orders 25 trams from Bozankaya

The Serbian capital will be the venue for Expo 27 in 2027 on a site near the airport, and to cope with the visitors, a new railway line is under construction to the airport, while more capacity needs to be provided on the city’s tramway system. 

 

Tramway operator GSP had planned to purchase 50 second-hand trams from Basel in Switzerland (high-floor Schindler trams with a low-floor centre section running on BLT lines), but with the city’s tram fleet already featuring a high proportion of second-hand trams, this idea was scrapped and a tender issued for new 100% low-floor trams. 

 

Twenty five new low-floor trams have now been ordered from the Turkish company Bozankaya, the only bidder on a tender that required delivery of the first two within nine months. The contract value is EUR 67.3M (excluding VAT). It is understood that both PESA and Siemens objected to the tender on the basis of an unrealistic timescale, but their appeals were rejected. 

 

Belgrade has operated a metre-gauge tramway since 1892 (horse) and 1894 (electric). There are 12 lines on a 47km (29-mile) network with about 230 trams in service, mostly high-floor Tatra KT4 dating from the 1980s. The last new trams were 30 CAF Urbos 3 low-floor cars purchased in 2011-2012.