Stadler Receive Another Order for New Trams for Bergen and Extension of Maintenance Contract Until 2026

Stadler will continue to maintain Bybanens tram fleet until 2026
Bybanen has also signed a contract for the delivery of eight additional Variobahn trams

Berlin, 18 July 2013. All the contracts for Stadlers further commitments to its Norwegian customer Bybanen (Bergen Light Rail) in Bergen have been signed in the last few days, exercising options from an existing contract. By 2017, Stadler will deliver a further eight seven-carriage Variobahn trams to Bergen and extend the existing fleet of 20 vehicles from five to seven carriages. The extension of the maintenance contract until 2026 is also an important element of the contract. The entire order is worth a total of more than EUR 100 million.

Only recently, the customer praised us publicly for the availability of our fleet, which is in excess of 99 per cent. For us, this is an indicator of the excellent quality of our vehicles and the commitment of our maintenance team, which has now been on site since 2009, explains Michael Daum, Director of Stadler Pankow GmbH. We set up the tram depot and established the maintenance site in conjunction with our contract partners.

The full-service maintenance contract until 2026 incorporates both preventive and corrective maintenance and guarantees a daily minimum availability of the vehicles.

The maintenance of vehicles is becoming increasingly important in the rail industry, Michael Daum continues, A guarantee of high availability is of real economic interest to the customer. This is something we have found both in the tram sector and also in the railway industry in the case of our FLIRT and KISS vehicles, where we have also signed vehicle maintenance contracts.

Further trams are required to serve Phase 3 of the line extension between the city of Bergen and the airport, where a new terminal has been added. As facilities such as a health centre, a university campus and shopping centres are being built along the route, the number of passengers per day is set to rise from its current 25,000 to 30,000.

Because of the high passenger numbers on the trams, Bybanen decided to extend its current vehicles by two modules and go straight to seven-carriage trams for the new order. The seven-carriage Variobahns are 42.14 m long and have five doors on each side. The trams can accommodate 280 passengers, with 98 seats (including tip-up seats) and standing room for 182 passengers. The interior design will be unchanged from the existing vehicles.