ITALY: Hitachi Rail has been awarded a contract to supply 46 trams equipped with batteries to avoid the need for overhead wires in the historic city of Firenze.
The order announced on July 30 includes the supply of digital signalling, and operator GEST has also awarded Hitachi Rail a €17m contract for the maintenance of the network’s existing fleet of AnsaldoBreda Sirio trams.
The new trams are scheduled to be delivered from 2026 and will be suitable for use across all current and future routes on the network.
The trams will be 33·5 m long with 54 seats and a maximum capacity of 278 passengers, and will feature large windows and an ‘innovative’ air-conditioning system.
They will have a maximum speed of 70 km/h, with regenerative braking to return power to the batteries to reduce overall energy consumption.
The contract builds on Hitachi Rail’s first trials of battery tram technology which were held in Firenze in 2021. They saw a retrofitted Sirio operate in revenue service using battery power between Stazione-Alamanni and Fortezza.
