In 2014 the Hungarian capital Budapest and Solaris signed a framework order with the intent to purchase 108 trolleybuses with the technical equipment supplied by Škoda. The General Assembly of Budapest has now decided to purchase the last 48 trolleybuses remaining from the framework contract. This order includes 12 solo and 36 articulated vehicles which will arrive in Budapest by the end of 2023, according to a recent agreement between the Budapest Transport Center (BKK) and the manufacturers.
These 48 Solaris-Škoda auxiliary battery-powered trolleybuses will cost approximately EUR 26.7 million (HUF 9.73 billion). The Municipality of Budapest will cover this by allocating HUF 210 million in 2022 and HUF 9.4 billion in 2023. The solo Solaris Trollino 12s arrive at a purchase price of HUF 173,625,600 and the articulated Trollino 18s at a purchase price of HUF 209,884,600 per piece. The first part of this fleet is expected to be delivered by the Polish-Czech duo in the fourth quarter of 2022 and the remaining vehicles in 2023. Škoda's electric's propulsion system, IMC (In-Motion-Charging) give the vehicle a range of up to 5 km on electricity stored in a battery pack. The trolleybuses are equipped with, among other things, full external and internal LED lighting, air conditioning, a security camera system and a system that calculates the current occupancy based on the total weight of the passengers.
The framework contract, worth in total EUR 62.4 million, initially provided for the purchase of 108 battery trolleybuses, 60 vehicles have since been called in. The deadline for exercising the remaining part of the framework would have originally expired on November 30 2020, but BKK received a one-year deferral from Solaris. The term of the framework agreement was thus changed to 30 November 2021, with the proviso that BKK could only claim 48 vehicles instead of the 50 remaining. Since 2007, Škoda Transportation has delivered more than HUF 72.6 billion worth of vehicles to Hungary, including the Škoda ForCity Classic trams manufactured for Miskolc.
Link to original article (in Hungarian): LINK