The eighth Tram 2000 tramcar from Switzerland arrived in Vinnytsia on 12 April. It is the last of the first tranche of tramcars to be delivered in the second phase of the "Zurich Trams" project. In total, Vinnytsia is to receive 35 Tram 2000 tramcars from the Swiss Confederation.
The Vinnytsia City Council announced this in a statement, the CFTS portal reports.
The delivered Tram 2000 tramcars differ from the Mirage and Karpfen tramcars that are familiar to Vinnytsia residents: they are more comfortable for passengers and have certain technical characteristics.
Experts at the Vinnytsia Transport Company have already begun adapting these tramcars to the requirements of Ukrainian legislation.
According to the Vinnytsia City Council’s Department of Transport and Urban Mobility, the tramcars must also undergo several other technical and legal procedures, in addition to their adaptation, before they can begin operating on the city’s tram routes.
"In general, this is a somewhat long-term process because it will be necessary to perform certification in accordance with the requirements of Ukrainian legislation, followed by registration with the electric transport inspectorate, preparation of the trams for tram routes, and their maintenance. We hope these trams will already be transporting passengers on our city routes in the summer," said Andrii Sorokin, director of the Department of Transport and Urban Mobility.
Sorokin added that the delivered tramcars will replace the older Mirage models on the city’s tram routes in the future.
Vinnytsia and Switzerland began cooperating on the "Zurich trams" project (2006-2011) in 2006. Vinnytsia received 116 tramcars during the first phase of the project. It should receive 35 Tram 2000 tramcars, as well as rails for the reconstruction of a tramway on Batozhka Street, in the second phase.
The memorandum on the second phase of the project was signed in December 2020. The SECO (the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs) made a non-refundable contribution of CHF 3,200,000 to the implementation of the project.
