Due to the technical characteristics of the trolley, the then SMTC (Serviço Municipal de Transportes Coletivos) (English: Municipal Collective Transport Service) installed trolleybus lines in streets and avenues where there were no tram lines, apart from some inevitable exceptions.
Although both the trams and trolley buses were powered by direct current electricity, the voltage of the two systems was different: the trolleybuses used two overhead wires: the positive and negative, whereas the tram network used only one wire, the positive pole, with the rails as the negative pole.
In many narrow streets, it was not technically feasible to operate trams and trolleybuses together, because a large amount of wiring would be necessary.
Nicknamed O Trólebus do Orquidário (English: The Trolleybuses of Orchids), it also followed Avenida Washington Luiz, but proceeded towards the end of the famous tourist spot, at José Menino.
This line also followed Avenida Conselheiro Nébias, bound for Gonzaga and Praça da Independência, and was later extended to Orquidário.
Also in 1967, overhead trolleybus wires were installed on Avenida Nossa Senhora de Fátima.
However, the municipality then decided to purchase diesel buses instead, and so the overhead wires were never used, with no additional trolleybuses being imported.
In that form, it remained in operation for many years and, along with the other 49 Italian made vehicles, travelled the trolleybus lines.
The following year, lines 40 and 53 were similarly closed, this time due to traffic in the opposite direction on Avenue Marechal Floriano Peixoto.
On 26 January 1988, line 20 (Praça Maua – Praça Independencia via Avenida Ana Costa), which had previously been operated by conventional bus, was converted to trolleybuses, using a combination of existing wires and about 2.5 km of new wires on Avenida Ana Costa.
A new express route, line 43, was opened to link Orquidário with Ferry Boat, and line 30, which connected the city centre with Gonzaga via Avenida Washington Luiz, was operated by conventional buses supplemented by trolleybuses, which terminated in the Praça José Bonifácio.
In early 1990, the CSTC began to experience a serious crisis, resulting in the lack of maintenance of the Fiat-Alfa Romeo trolleybuses.
Around April 2020, motorbuses took over for trolleybuses on the route, for reasons related to the COVID-19 pandemic,[9] which brought service reductions that left only a single vehicle duty on the route, and the trolleybuses are high-floor vehicle lacking wheelchair lifts;[1] a low-floor bus was substituted for an indefinite period.
Except for an approximately two-week period in March 2021,[10] trolleybus service has remained suspended (as of October 2021).
In 2008, there was a proposal for heritage trolleybuses to operate on a line supplementing the existing system of tourist trams in the city.
[12] They had a capacity for 95 passengers (52 seated and 43 standing) each, and were similar to the imported trolleybuses used in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, Bahia.
[13] In the same period, new Marcopolo vehicles (with Scania chassis) were also acquired: a 1979 prototype, numbered 600, followed in 1982 by five production-series units, Nos.
600, the 1979 prototype which was first trolleybus ever built by Marcopolo[8] (using a Scania chassis), the six 1982 production-series units having been retired earlier.