Prague Takes Ownership of Eleven Bozankaya Trolleybuses, and Bus 137 Is Next to Go

Dopravní podnik hl. m. Prahy has taken eleven Bozankaya SNG 12T battery trolleybuses into its own property. The transport undertaking announced the completed acceptance on Friday 5 September; Zdopravy.cz reported the same day that the step was closed by the signing of a handover protocol, and described the procedure that led to it as complicated. Eleven is the first tranche of thirty vehicles that have been standing in the Řepy garages, delivered but unowned, since May.

Three of the eleven are ready to carry passengers. They have a fully functioning ticketing and information system and all the vinyl the PID quality standards call for. One of the three ran in scheduled service on line 51, run 2, on Saturday; two were put on display at the Řepy open day DPP held the same day for the ninetieth anniversary of trolleybus operation in Prague, one of them doubling as the operating spare. Over the following days all three are to be dispatched onto runs of lines 51, 52 and 53.

Eight vehicles and about a week of stickers

The remaining eight need work before they can be timetabled, and the work is not mechanical. DPP lists it as the outstanding items under the PID quality standards: exterior and interior wrapping, and updating the settings and operating data of the ticketing and information system. Zdopravy.cz puts the job at roughly five working days per batch, on its own information rather than DPP's.

We have just taken the first eleven Bozankaya SNG 12T trolleybuses of the thirty ordered into DPP's ownership. Three vehicles are fully prepared for deployment in scheduled service. The remaining eight accepted vehicles will undergo the necessary steps under the PID standards over the coming days.

— Jan Šurovský, vice-chair of the board and technical director – Surface, DPP

That is what stands between the network as it is now and the change that actually matters to passengers on the ground.

The 137 goes away

The first vehicles are destined chiefly for line 52 to Waltrovka, the first of the new left-bank trolleybus routes to be completed, which was finished this spring. It is currently worked by buses of line 137.

The first three accepted Bozankaya trolleybuses have already gone into service. Passengers can try one out today in scheduled service on line 51, run 2. We will use another two trolleybuses at today's open day at the Řepy garage, one of them serving at the same time as the operating spare. Over the coming days we will dispatch these three vehicles onto individual runs of lines 51, 52 and 53. As soon as the remaining eight accepted vehicles are fully prepared, we will end bus operation on line 137 without unnecessary delay and convert it permanently into the fully trolleybus 52.

— Jan Barchánek, board member and transport director, DPP

The other two routes are the 51 to Bořislavka and the 53 to Strahov, both restored in June. Read against the past eight months, the acceptance is the last administrative step between three finished trolleybus routes and the fleet that was bought for them.

What was actually stuck

The vehicles themselves have been legally fit to run since the middle of April, when the Drážní úřad issued the type-approval decision for operation on trolleybus track and the certificates of competence. The acceptance then started in batches of a few vehicles at a time and stalled. When Zdopravy.cz reported on the deadlock on 27 August, the outstanding dispute was no longer about technical defects but about the quality of the Czech translation of the vehicle documentation.

The frame around all of this is a framework contract for up to 70 low-floor trolleybuses, which DPP awarded to the Turkish manufacturer Bozankaya at the beginning of last year and which Zdopravy.cz values at CZK 1.099 billion excluding VAT. Two orders have been placed against it so far — seven vehicles, then twenty-three. The first arrived in Prague in January; the thirtieth, in PID livery, parked in Řepy in May.

We are very pleased that together with DPP we have managed to complete the acceptance procedure for the first part of the vehicles, and that thanks to this Praguers will soon ride in new modern trolleybuses. We will continue to provide DPP with cooperation so that the remaining vehicles can also enter scheduled service soon.

— Martin Opatrný, media representative, Bozankaya

Nineteen vehicles are still unaccepted.