Kosice cancels major competition for new trams
Due to delays in the tender, the winner would not be able to deliver the trams in time to benefit from subsidies.
More than two years after it was launched, the tender for the delivery of 30 new trams to Kosice ended in a fiasco. The Kosice public transport company (DPMK) announced it was canceling the tender, Ceskoslovensky dopravak pointed out.
According to the contracting authority’s report, it is no longer possible to ensure that at least ten vehicles will be delivered by the end of next year due to delays in the tender. This is a condition of the European subsidy for their purchase. DPMK described the reasons as a “change of circumstances”. The transport company does not have the money for the purchase without the subsidy.
The Czech manufacturer Skoda Transportation and the Polish PESA Bydgoszcz competed against each other. The contract, announced in June 2020, has kept lawyers busy for the past year. The evaluation committee changed the winner several times.
The new two-way trams were to replace the older KT8D5 vehicles. PESA offered a cheaper tram in the tender. The contract was dealt with by the Public Procurement Office, which found errors in the selection process. The commission declared Pesa the winner three times, but finally excluded the company from the tender because it did not meet the conditions. DPMK thus declared Skoda the winner but eventually canceled the competition.
The transport company was looking for bidirectional trams with a total capacity of 236 passengers. The trams were supposed to be double-articulated with five doors.
Edited and translated by Lucie Trávníčková.