Trolleybus usage by country
[4] Currently, 11 urban systems are in operation, and they include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Qingdao and Jinan, among other locations.
One such line is at the Wuyang Coal Mine, located near Changzhi, in Shanxi province, which opened in 1985 and, as of 2010, had a fleet of 10 articulated trolleybuses.
A newly built extension to Tehran Railway Station (at Rahahan Square) was opened in 2010, but subsequent pedestrianisation at Meydan-e-Emam-Hoseyn led to the curtailment of all three routes to a point about 1 km south of that busy hub, and all trolleybus service was suspended indefinitely around 2013.
[17] A few other places have private, very small (in some cases only one or two vehicles) systems for transporting workers from a housing area to a nearby coal mine or other industrial site—or at least did at some time within recent years.
[18] The first and only trolleybus system to exist in Saudi Arabia opened in April 2013 in Riyadh, serving the then-new main campus of the King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences.
Trolleybuses have operated in both the Asian and European parts of Turkey, in five cities: Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir, Malatya, and Sanliurfa.
One of them, a small system connecting Liège to the suburb of Seraing, operated the world's only double-ended (bi-directional) trolleybuses; the vehicles were eventually rebuilt to conventional (single-ended) configuration.
[4] One of those unique vehicles, restored to double-ended configuration, is preserved at the Musée des Transports en commun du Pays de Liège.
Trolleybus networks operate in Sofia (since 1941), Pleven (1985), Varna (1986), Sliven (1986), Stara Zagora (1987), Ruse (1988), Vratsa (1988), Burgas (1989), Haskovo (1990) and Pazardzhik (1993).
In the late 1980s the towns of Dimitrovgrad and Gorna Oryahovitsa started to build networks, but due to financial problems the projects were suspended.
Trolleybuses in Veliko Tarnovo operated from 1991 until 2009 when due to road construction works part of the overhead wires were temporarily removed, but subsequently never restored causing the system to shut down.
At its peak, the system had nine routes,[2] currently the city of Tallinn is gradually substituting trolleybuses with hybrid drive buses.
Trolleybuses are in use in Ancona, Bologna, Cagliari, Chieti, Genoa, La Spezia, Lecce, Milan, Modena, Naples, Parma, Rimini, and Rome.
There were 7 municipals systems operational after World War Two, partially inherited after the Germans; the trolleybus transportation reached its climax in the early 1960s, with some 130 vehicles in Warsaw alone.
Three of them are variations of the original line established shortly after World War II with Russian-made vehicles, with the same terminus in the heart of old downtown next to the Kalemegdan fortress.
[52] The route led to the hilly recreational area of Železná studienka and the trolleybuses' motors were fed by a four-wheel bogie running on top of the wires and connected to the vehicle by a cable.
[56] The Irisbus Civis vehicles are optically guided and are capable of switching to diesel power for turning in front of the Parque Ribalto.
[63] In Lausanne, the Association RétroBus has preserved several vintage trolleybuses, the oldest example being a 1932 FBW,[64] and in the 2000s operated them periodically on public excursions, especially on summer weekends.
Trolleybus systems run in more than 40 cities,[1] including the interurban Crimean network connecting Simferopol with Alushta and Yalta on the coast.
[70] The city's aging trolley fleet was replaced in 2006–2009 with new low-floor models built in Canada by New Flyer, including 74 articulated units.
[69] The trolleys are valued in the Vancouver transit network for their "greener" energy usage and emissions (relying on hydro-electric power), quieter operation over diesels and the high-torque electric motors are well-suited to hilly areas of the city.
In discussing the Laval study, some provincial officials indicated they would like to see transport agencies in other major Québec cities also consider installing trolleybus networks.
[71] At the end of the study, the Laval transit authority decided to experiment with rechargeable battery-powered buses first, before making a decision on whether to proceed with trolleybuses.
In the 1960s and 1970s STE acquired trolleybuses withdrawn from service in many Canadian and U.S. cities, including Montreal, Winnipeg, Cleveland, Dallas, Indianapolis, Johnstown, Little Rock, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Shreveport and San Francisco, and placed them in service in Mexico City,[76][77] following these later with a similar acquisition of 37 Flyers from Edmonton in 1987.
Since 1981 more than 700 trolleybuses have been purchased from Mexicana de Autobuses S.A. (MASA),[4] fitted with electrical equipment by various suppliers (including Hitachi, Toshiba, Kiepe and Mitsubishi) for batches of vehicles ordered at different times.
South American Railless Traction Co., organized in London in 1912, planned to cover the continent with trolleybus lines and built an experimental route in Mendoza in 1913.
[95] The company has faced fierce competition from bus operators, and has come close to bankruptcy a few times, but many Valparaíso inhabitants feel an emotional link to the service, and vigorously defend the trolleybuses.
[4] Russian-built ZIU and Romanian-built DAC trolleybuses comprised the entire fleet in the system's last several years of operation.
[105] Around June 2015, because of a combination of factors, including electricity rationing and thefts of overhead wiring during periods of civil unrest, diesel buses began to be used on the trolleybus line, and by October 2015 they were providing about half of the service.
[108] For the planned 22 km route, 80 articulated trolleybuses were purchased from Neoplan, in Germany, and construction of the system began in 2006,[109] but financial and political issues subsequently caused several long suspensions of work.
