Starting in March, the journey from Veleslavín Station to Václava Havla Airport in Prague will become more comfortable and eco-friendly. Diesel buses on line no. One hundred nineteen high-capacity battery trolleybuses will replace 119. And these are not just trolleybuses – they are the longest in the Czech Republic, measuring almost 25 meters.
The “Škoda–Solaris 24m” trolleybuses will be the longest-used public transport in the Czech Republic, measuring 24.7 meters. The city of Prague will be the first to introduce them. The transport company has acquired twenty for the metropolis, costing approximately 620 million crowns. “The trolleybus can carry 179 passengers. It is for these capacity reasons that we purchased these long trolleybuses. In peak times, we had to deploy two articulated buses in succession on line 119, and this trolleybus can replace them,” said DPP General Director Petr Witowski.
The introduction of these trolleybuses required the construction of infrastructure. Trolleybus lines began to be built at the beginning of this year. “And sometime at the end of February, we should be finished with the track. Today, it is physically visible that the track is built from Veleslavín station to Divoká Šárka, and in the last week, the construction of the trolleybus line was underway towards the Prague ring road and in the area around the Šestka department store to terminal 3,” outlined Šurovský.
In March 2024, bus line no. One hundred nineteen will be phased out and replaced by trolleybuses on the new line no. 59. The city anticipates that once the railway connection to the airport is built, the long three-segment trolleybuses will be used elsewhere in Prague, possibly on line 136.