A new tram could be seen on the streets of Timisoara these days, featuring a modern low-floor design and blue colour. Authorities emphasised that the new means of transportation is in testing, in order to obtain homologation from the Romanian Railway Authority.
The Arad Tram Plant, member of the Astra Vagoane Calatori Arad Group, is the tram’s producer. Arad specialists built a tram that is their own design, in order to no longer depend on Siemens, the company they collaborated with in order to produce the Imperio tram model.
Unlike the old Imperio model, produced under licence from Siemens, the new model, dubbed ‘Autentic’ is a 100 percent Romanian design.
Romania’s Astra Arad, owned by businessman Valer Blidar, recently launched the Autentic model, the company’s newest product, at the 11th edition of the ‘Railway Pro’ Technology and Services Forum.
What does the new Autentic model bring? While the old ‘Imperio’ tram was designed by Germany’s Siemens, had 50 percent original components and was manufactured under licence in Arad, the ‘Autentic’ model has 100 percent made-in-Romania components. It is however important that the new tram is a Romanian design, the Railway Pro representatives stated. According to them, the electrical engines are made in Romania, at ICPE Bucharest. Some systems, such as the CCTV system, are imported, since they are not produced in Romania.
The result is a “state-of-the-art” tram that combines the Arad-based company’s prior experience with the newest solutions in what concerns the equipment,” Railway Pro officials state.
The tram has customized characteristics, a modern and attractive design, two-wing doors with a total width of 1,300 millimetres, foldable on one side or on both sides, depending on the client’s requirements, offering quick and easy access to passengers. This new product has 100 percent low floor, for enhanced comfort. The interior is spacious, bright, modified on the basis of the clients’ requests, has air conditioning and large displays on which information can be easily read by passengers.
Astra hopes the new model will be more successful than the Imperio model.
Astra Vagoane Calatori Marketing Director Adrian Paraschiv stated that the company’s new policy is to sell modern and more expensive carriages in order to no longer sell large quantities of cheap products.
“We have changed the marketing policy. We are no longer selling many cheap carriages. We have exported to over 20 countries for many years. Our philosophy was: many cheap carriages. In recent years, we turned toward complex carriages and we exported to Iran, Egypt, Italy, Brazil,” Paraschiv pointed out.
He said that, in these conditions, the Arad-based tram plant has a significant opportunity, being set to take part in all tenders.
“In Eastern Europe, roughly all cities have second-hand trams. These no longer have spare parts and one day will be decommissioned, then there will be tenders. We will also take part in the tenders for the 13 Romanian cities that have infrastructure for trams,” Paraschiv said.
