The City of Olsztyn has ordered 15 Tramino low-floor trams from public transport vehicle manufacturer Solaris. Olsztyn is the first city in Poland to build a new tram system in 55 years, with the Solaris Tramino to be delivered in time for its opening in 2014. The 120 million Złoty (30 million Euro) contract for the purchase of Olsztyn’s new tram fleet was signed on 21 September 2012.

The Solaris Tramino for Olsztyn will be bi-directional vehicles with a length of 29.3 metres. They will have three body sections, each of which rests on a pivoting bogie for 1,435 mm standard gauge, allowing an evenly balanced weight distribution. Olsztyn’s Tramino will be designed to easily accomodate high-volume passenger flows. They will have six sets of double doors on each side, providing easy and comfortable access to the completely low floor throughout the tram. Fitted with 36 seats, they will be able to accommodate more than 230 passengers in total (at 5 persons/m2).

Having successfully produced city and intercity buses for countries across Europe and the Middle East since 1996, Solaris entered the urban rail market in 2009 with the presentation of a pre-production vehicle of the Tramino low-floor tram, which underwent an extensive test programme before entering passenger service in the Polish city of Poznań. Poznań City Transport subsequently ordered 45 Solaris Tramino, all of which were delivered on time before the Euro 2012 football championships, of which Poznań was a host city.

While the Tramino for Poznań are multi-articulated vehicles with suspended body sections, a second concept is offered in which every body section is supported by its own bogie. This type of tram was chosen by the German cities of Jena and Braunschweig, ordering five and fifteen trams respectively, as well as by Olsztyn, which has become the fourth operator and second Polish city to choose the state-of-the-art Solaris Tramino low-floor tram.