The leadership of Prague presented new trams for the capital city on Wednesday. The first Škoda ForCity Plus 52T units are expected to hit the streets by the end of next year. The city has signed an eight-year contract with the winner of a public tender for the purchase of 40 trams and an option to deliver up to 160 more. The city will pay 83 million crowns for each tram.
The Škoda ForCity Plus Praha 52T is a unidirectional five-section 100% low-floor tram with no steps in the passenger lounge, including the area above the bogies. The design was created by a team from Škoda Group, led by Tomáš Chludil.
The tram is 32 meters long and is equipped with full-car air conditioning with ecological refrigerant, anti-collision system, automatic passenger counting, energy-saving LED interior and exterior lighting, and 70 upholstered seats, 44 of which are in the direction of travel and 26 against it.
Compared to the previous 15T trams, the capacity of the new vehicles will increase by 33 passengers, almost 16%. The passengers will appreciate the new information system of six large screens across the width of the aisle and the more intuitive operation of the door opening buttons and signaling to the driver.
The contract’s total value is almost 16.602 billion crowns, making it one of the most significant investments in new trams in the modern history of DPP. The first 20 new trams should arrive in Prague in December 2025, with another 20 vehicles following a year later, by the end of December 2026.
The new trams will also have an anti-collision system designed to reduce the likelihood of collisions in operation. This combines doubled LiDAR technology and an HD camera, precise localization using offline recorded HD maps, and odometry. This allows the system to create a virtual driving tunnel in which the tram can detect obstacles with an accuracy of 10 cm, provide timely warning, minimize false positive warnings, and activate the emergency brake in time.