SWEDEN: The first of 40 trams that Bombardier Transportation is supplying to Göteborg arrived in the city on December 13 after a three-day journey from the manufacturer’s Bautzen factory.

A consortium of Bombardier and Kiepe Electric is supplying 30 unidirectional and 10 bidirectional Flexity trams under a contract awarded in October 2016. The second tram is due to arrive in early 2020. Final assembly of the 38 series-built trams is due to take place at Bombardier’s factory in Wien.

The first trams are due to enter passenger traffic in the first half of 2020, with deliveries of all 40 scheduled to be completed in 2022.

Designated Type M33, the low-floor trams are 33 m long with capacity for 75 seated and 155 standing passengers. The €140m order includes options for up to 60 more trams to be ordered in batches of at least 10 vehicles until 2026. These can be 33 m or 45 m.

Operator Göteborgs Spårvägar said that in the first 10 months of 2019 ridership across the city’s tram network increased by 8% year on year. The forecast for the full year is 141 million passenger-journeys.