The transport authority of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius continues with the process to completely renew its trolleybus fleet – this time by procuring 91 new vehicles for delivery in 2024 and 2025. The winner of the tender launched in July 2022 is the Skoda Group, which is supplying its 32 Tr model, which is already in use at various other trolleybus operators. The body of the 12-metre trolleybuses will be sub-supplied by the Czech manufacturer SOR. The order is worth 52 million euros and includes the supply of spare parts and a five-year maintenance contract.
The vehicles are equipped with traction batteries that allow up to 20 km of travel in battery mode off the overhead line. They are recharged without loss of time during the journey under overhead line. After 41 Solaris Trollino 12 trolleybuses delivered with electric equipment from Skoda in 2018/19, the renewal programme is thus making decisive progress and securing the future of trolleybus operation, the replacement of which was under discussion just a few years ago.
Currently, approximately 150 high-floor Skoda 14 Tr/14 TrM two-axle and two Skoda 15Tr articulated trolleybuses from the 1980s and 1990s are still in use on the network, on which 18 trolleybus lines are in operation. Skoda had also delivered several hundred of the type 9 Tr, which was very widespread in the Eastern bloc, to Vilnius since the 1960s, one of which is now part of the museum collection. The current stock also includes 45 Solaris Trollino 15 with all-electrics and two MAZ 203T Amber.
