DPP Wants Six More Rebuilt T3s. ROPID Says Stop Buying Obsolete Trams

Prague's transport company wants six more of the rebuilt trams known as wany, and the organisation that specifies what the city's network needs does not want them. Zdopravy.cz reported on 1 October that an order for a further six T3R.PLF cars is under discussion at DPP. ROPID has come out against it, and the two positions are now going to a joint meeting at City Hall with the city's leadership present.

The deputy mayor for transport put the disagreement on the record without resolving it.

DPP really does want to acquire further cars, ROPID questions the need. At a joint meeting we will put the arguments against each other and try to find a solution acceptable to all three parties.

— Jaromír Beránek, deputy mayor of Prague for transport

What a wan is, and why it exists

A T3R.PLF is a Tatra T3 — the tram that defined Prague for half a century — rebuilt with a low-floor middle section spliced into the body. It is not a new vehicle and was never meant to read as one. DPP's justification for building them has always been ROPID's own requirement: that night services offer at least partial step-free access. The company does not want to put newly bought trams on night lines, where the risk of vandalism is higher, so the rebuilt cars were the answer to a specification ROPID wrote.

That is what makes this dispute unusual. ROPID is now arguing against the fleet it asked for.

We would rather see new trams bought, or older low-floor cars reconstructed to add full-vehicle air conditioning.

— Filip Drápal, spokesman for ROPID

The organiser's second argument is a decision the city has already taken. Drápal said that under a valid resolution of the city council, from 2031 T3R.PLF cars should no longer run coupled in pairs, with the exception of special services — the student line 28 and diversion lines. Beyond line 28, the cars would then be used only on night services with enough operating reserve.

The numbers behind the argument

DPP has 89 T3R.PLF trams in its depots. Seventy-two are in running order; the rest are temporarily stored or in the workshops, and four have never entered service at all. Thirty-five first-generation cars were rebuilt earlier, and in 2022 DPP signed a framework contract with Pragoimex covering modifications to up to 65 more in the facelifted version. The target fleet, on the information given at the time, was 100 cars.

Read together, those figures describe a programme that is close to finishing rather than starting. Eighty-nine delivered plus six ordered is ninety-five; thirty-five plus sixty-five is a hundred. The six cars are not an expansion beyond what was agreed — they are the tail of it. What ROPID is disputing is whether the last stretch of an agreed programme should be drawn down at all, now that the city has set a date after which the same vehicles cannot be coupled.

Why this is worth following

A tram ordered in 2026 is in service in the 2040s, and the T3R.PLF is a 1960s body shell with a new middle. Four of the 89 have not run a single service. The case for them rests on night lines and vandalism; the case against rests on a council resolution that limits their use from 2031 and on the one comfort feature a Prague passenger now notices, which is air conditioning the rebuilt cars do not have.

Both arguments are reasonable, which is why the meeting at City Hall matters more than the usual procurement step. Beránek's phrase was all three parties — the company, the organiser and the city. The city is the one with the money, and the one whose own 2031 resolution is now being cited against a purchase its transport company wants to make.