«Chizhik» tram project has been successfully launched in St. Petersburg
New unique «Chizhik» public-private partnership project has been successfully launched in St. Petersburg on September 1. «Transport Concession Company» completed the comprehensive tram traffic reconstruction and launched traffic two months ahead of schedule on St. Petersburg Government’s request.
Alexander Beglov, Acting Governor, thanked all the project’s parties for their high-quality work. «Once St. Petersburg was a tram capital in routes number and tracks length terms. We’d like to return the current name to it. We are going to actively use the light rail in order to ensure transport the remote areas accessibility», the city head said.
New routes have been added to two «Chizhik» tram routes, running in the Krasnogvardeysky district since 2018 by the school year start: No. 59 on Potapova street and No 63 to Peredovikov street. «Chizhik» tram network will be able to carry over 103 thousand passengers on a weekday and about 65 thousand on a weekend by the end of 2020, according to estimates.
The agreement between St. Petersburg and «Transport Concession Company» LLC on the tram network creation, reconstruction and operation in the Krasnogvardeysky District was signed on May 30, 2016 within the first concession experience in the urban rail transport field in Russian Federation. Foreign co-investors together with the Russian Direct Investment Fund took part in it.
The concession agreement implementation contributes to the transport infrastructure development in the Krasnogvardeisky district, which population is about 350 thousand people and in St. Petersburg as a whole as well as reduces the time spent for moving. The rolling stock operational speed reaches 24 km/h, despite it did not exceed 12 km/h before the concession. Currently a passenger spends no more than 16 minutes for moving from the route start, for example, Ladozhskaya metro station to the final stop of the route number 8.
All «Chizhiki» are equipped with climate control systems, information boards and audio informants, sockets for recharging mobile phones and Wi-Fi as well. The wagons are distinguished by two cabins, low noise, large storage areas and a bright and spacious cabin, intended for 376 passengers.
The current project contributed to the fundamentally new traffic control system implementation in the city. The transported passengers number calculation system, who paid for the ticket as well as the software, required for the passenger traffic analysis, are innovative.
Tram Depot on Potapova street is a modern buildings and structures complex, which use the fastest trams service technologies. This reduces the reserve fleet by over 5 times while ensuring the uninterrupted daily trams production per line. The result is the rolling stock operation and launching costs reduction.
Totally the «Transport Concession Company» reconstructed over 14 km of tram tracks and a contact network, created 40 stops, 3 reversal rings, equipped 5 revolving exits, built a high-tech depot and acquired 23 modern low-floor trams during the agreement implementation. The complete roadway replacement, the engineering networks reconstruction, the traffic lights replacement, the sidewalks construction and regulated pedestrian crossings as well as the territory improvement have been completed successfully.
Successful experience in «Chizhik» project implementation can be scaled throughout St. Petersburg while being able to become the integrated public transport management system part.