Europe travel guide

Riga to run Skoda trams

The 'SIA Rigas Satiksme' (Riga Transport Authority), has announced today that it has awarded an almost €52m contract to the VW owned car giant Skoda.

The contract, of which the exact details are yet to be released, is to supply 20 low-floor trams for use in Riga city centre. It also includes an option for an additional 32 trams which would make the contract the biggest Skoda has won since 1990. It was formally signed on May 23rd, following an international tender launched in Dec 07.

Long gone are the days when Skoda was synonymous with badly built cars, these days they are a massive engineering conglomerate, and have a good reputation for building 1,524 mm gauge trams.

Praha has recently put in an order for 250 similar 'Type 15T' trams, which are due to be delivered in the next few years. Like the Praha trams, the Riga cars will be three-section articulated units each 31.5 m long and 2,500 mm wide. There will be seating capacity for 60 and space for 240 standing passengers.

This article was written for TravelSavvy Europe by Terry Higham. For more information see: Riga - Getting around. If you know of an interesting European travel related news story, please get in contact.