Next year, new Russian Vityaz-M trams will operate on routes that enter the city center. They are assembled in Tver at the local car building plant, and are already in operation in St. Petersburg and Krasnodar. He or his other modifications may appear in Samara, Volgograd and Rostov-on-Don.
Since Moscow historically purchases a lot of rolling stock from different manufacturers, we will compare the newcomer with what we already have. We will try to sensibly assess all the pros and cons.
First, a few words about the whole of this review.
This instance of "Vityaz-M" - upgraded version of the tram, which had already been running in Moscow before. You can see photos of the first copy of the original "Knight" and.
Specifically, this copy was not made for Moscow, but for different cities. He has already been seen on other people's rails. Those copies that will be in the capital will not have 99.9% differences. Maybe just a little something.
1. Technical data at the exhibition. 
2. Appearance. The tram will have the classic blue color of Moscow transport. Due to the design, it can safely be called black and blue. 
3. The head is also pleasant in appearance. It is immediately clear that the tram driver will have a very wide view. This is a safety plus. After all, we do not have Prague, the tram does not have priority over the pedestrian. 
4. The most important thing on the forehead of a tram for any passenger is a board indicating the route. Here the tram is very much inferior to many of the same Polish Pesa Fokstrot, which has multiplied in the north-west of the capital. Clearly there is room to install another scoreboard, but is it technically possible? Ideally, the scoreboard should be sent to the forehead higher. So for now it's a minus. 
5. A noticeable difference between a tveryak and all others is the door. More precisely, their number. Once, UKVZ sent a three-section tram with a similar arrangement of doors to Moscow. That copy was the only one and now a draw. It seems to be still in Strogino. 
6. Double doors are a great convenience for the passenger of the tram. I cannot adequately perceive such a design in buses, for example. Here everything is different. At first glance, in such weather, which is now established in Moscow, this option is very bad. The cabin will cool very quickly. On the other hand, we can compare with the same Pesoy, as the only Moscow mass multi-section. All doors are in demand only at major stops near the Skhodnenskaya or Schukinskaya metro stations. While the whole crowd is leaving, the cabin cools noticeably everywhere except in the middle part. If the weather is strong wind, then there too. but then fast heating back. In addition, there are also exit buttons here. So it's more of a plus. 
7. We go inside. The salon looks very empty. I am more than sure that the first passengers will scold the designers with all possible expressions, including obscene ones! But we're here to figure it out. Let's study. 
8. Firstly, I note that since the first version was shown, the designers have partially changed the seating arrangement from "across the cabin" to "along the wall". It will definitely be unusual for passengers, but is there anything surprising here? 100% of the seated passengers of our subway travel sideways. Nobody complains. Tram from land transport closest to him. Secondly, in every cabin of low-floor transport there are places where it is difficult to put the seats in some other way and make it convenient at the same time. Here we put both seats facing forward. AND? The passenger is driving and looking at part of the control panel. Let's put both backs forward - we look at the seat hanging on the pedestal. And so the review of the entire entrance area. Not the worst option in the absence of a good one. 
9. This Vityaz is the first tram in my memory that has seating in one area in all directions. There is no way to remove these lifts. The trolley and its equipment will remain in any case. prosto_vova
reasonably, he was the first to ask a question about the convenience of sitting in this place and the possibility of getting his trousers dirty on the legs of a passenger sitting higher. I also thought about it, but I had the opportunity to check on the spot. The "metro-like" seats are completely normal and won't let your toes stick out if you're sitting the right way. That is, without "I fell apart here like a king." Another couple of seats hang about 1/3 over the aisle. The situation here is this: it's not very cool, but it reminds me of the seats on the wheel of the old ZiU trolleybuses. There, too, one leg dangled. As a result, people sat a little uncomfortable. Why did they do it here? The developers decided to be the first to test a solution in which space above the wheels of the tram is not for a maximum of seats (Pesa Fokstrot, Stadler Metelitsa), but for freedom of passage in this place. Risk? Small. It is easily fixed in the next batch, but you need to understand how much it will be really problematic for a mass passenger. As a result, according to the layout of the seats above the carts, we will put a plus or minus. There is no single answer. 
10. Opposite double doors, everything is easier. Near one there are single seats, near the second there is a storage area, places for prams. There are 2 more seats between the double doors. 
11. The minus was unexpectedly found in the handrails above the seats in 2 places above the cart. For some reason, in this instance they were made above the seats. I hope they will think of fixing it right away and making them go out into the aisle. Replaced very easily. 
12. A huge surprise for the future passenger is the middle section. " Transport systems"they originally designed the tram with such a section and promoted it, while everyone else makes ordinary seats here. Here the equipment was removed a little differently in design and a small subway car was organized with a wide aisle and 16 low-floor seats. It looks unusual, but it's inconvenient to say "No. In the metro trains "Rusich" in general, 18 seats side by side in the same way. There is no problem. There is a place for fullness during peak hours. We put a plus." 
13. The rear section is similar to the front. There are two places at the very end. 
14. Bottom line on the cabin and dry facts: the number of seats is sufficient. 60 pieces. This is a plus. 26 out of 60 seats are high, all the rest are low - great! Near each door (out of 6!) there are at least two low seats for the elderly and those who find it difficult to climb - a huge plus! A few tall seats dangle down the aisle - minus. Another specific minus is the new Moscow seats themselves. but this is a personal opinion. 
15. Another thing that is important for the passenger is information about the route and stops. Usually in our transport there are 1-2 boards. There are 6 running lines at once (at the beginning and at the end of each section) and two screens (at one point, but in both directions) for simultaneous display a large number information. This is also a plus. 
16. Summing up: when parsing the points, "Vityaz-M" turns out to be better than it seems at first glance. Lots of small perks like information boards inside and middle section. There are downsides with a frontal scoreboard and some seats. There is a new - in general, a lot of places like in the subway. 
In my opinion, this tram is better than the Polish one. The only thing I would like is internal design. He's just kind of... not catchy. But it's for taste and color.
What is your opinion about the new tram?
Thank you for your attention! stay in touch!
The first thing that impressed Belarusian transport workers was newest trams"Vityaz-M". Their internal organization- air conditioning at a temperature outside of 16 degrees Celsius, GLONASS systems, 15 cameras in the cabin and door opening buttons, both from the outside and from the inside - made the delegates think about putting forward a proposal in Minsk to upgrade the existing rolling stock.
Guided tour for guests boss tram depot named after Bauman Denis Matlin. He said that the depot serves six city routes, it contains 120 new cars, another 20 arrived for transfer to colleagues in the Oktyabrsky tram depot.
From Tverskoy machine-building plant trams are brought in trailers, they are assembled here, they are run in, - he said.
Questions rained down as if from a cornucopia: is the Vityaz-M designed for autonomous running, where such a system is used, how drivers evaluate innovations, who drives trams - men or women.
The car with passengers will travel 20 kilometers on its own, - Denis Matlin answered. - Autonomous move used only when the line is de-energized. Our drivers are mostly women. There are slightly fewer men in the state.
As noted Department head public institution"Capital transport and communication" of the city of Minsk(company - operator passenger traffic) Alexander Pylaev, expensive trams are still a dream for Belarus. Of course, changes are taking place in Minsk, but not at such a rapid pace as in Moscow.
In a short time, 300 Vityazey carriages will be purchased in the Russian capital - these are colossal funds that the city allocates for renovation public transport, - he said.
Inside the tram there are validators and door opening buttons. The Belarusians were curious - how quickly did Muscovites get used to such innovations?
Adaptation to the turnstile-free passage and the entrance after pressing the button took about two weeks, - said Denis Matlin. - Then the grandmothers explained to the young people what to open by pressing the button, that the driver himself does not open the door.
Such a system saves energy resources at stops.
Photo: Ekaterina Yakel, Evening Moscow
There are a lot of systems in the tram cabin: call panels, GLONASS, instructions, multimedia technologies. Impressive but seems to be an overloaded system for the drivers themselves, - expressed his opinion Head of the traffic safety department of the state enterprise "Minsktrans" Konstantin Gololobov.
And he offered the Minsk experience - a route schedule in in electronic format allows you to calculate the arrival time of the tram four stops ahead. In Moscow, the system notifies via SMS if the driver starts to be late. Denis Matlin promised to tell his leadership about Belarusian logistics.
Nevertheless, it is clear that Moscow is doing a lot to update the public transport fleet, - Alexander Pylaev notes. - There are dedicated lanes, separate tram tracks - all this forms traffic safety. In Minsk, there are also dedicated lanes, but there is no law for fines for drivers of personal vehicles driving on these sections of the road. Only guards inspecting the track can stop them. Photo and video recording on such a scale as in Moscow, we do not have.
Minsk is only on the way to fixing violations on the roads with the help of cameras. The pilot project has already passed in the capital of Belarus, now it is up to the legislators, who must approve the idea on paper.
Belarusians are ready to borrow another Moscow idea - a single ticket menu for all transport. In Minsk, for example, you can buy a ticket only for the tram, bus, and separately for the metro. Citizens prefer to purchase single travel cards.
We are ready to offer the idea with a single ticket menu as soon as we return home, - said Alexander Pylaev. - With a travel card, thanks to which you can get on a trolleybus, tram, go to the subway, the popularity of public transport will seriously increase.
In his opinion, the logistics in the city will also change: people will not have to choose uncomfortable and long routes just to save on travel by buying one travel pass.
The Belarusian guests also liked the equipment of land transport with free Internet access.
It's convenient, you go and solve work issues along the way, - the delegates noted.
On the other hand, Belarusian transport workers boasted that a large social package was provided for their employees: free lunches, home delivery after the shift, duty buses for drivers. The parties agreed that they would continue to exchange experience in the transport sector.
What else did the Belarusian delegates in Moscow note:
- high level street improvement,
- bike lanes and sidewalks
- lack of advertising billboards and signs on buildings,
- emphasis on the development of public transport,
- organization of parking space,
- system of responsibility for parking violations,
- mobile app Moscow Assistant.
We started with the lines of a song by the bard Yakov Kogan about the elimination of trams in Baku. But in Moscow no one is going to touch the trams. Moreover, tram traffic is actively developing: recently, new Vityaz-M cars appeared on one of the capital's routes. And I could not deny myself the pleasure of riding one of them.
Vityaz-M is a joint development of Transmashholding and Metrovagonmash. Its prototype was presented at the exhibition in 2014. And in September 2016, these companies won a tender for the supply of three hundred of these trams to Moscow. By the way, production has been established in Tver at the facilities of the Tver Carriage Building Plant, and new cars are delivered to the capital from there by trucks.
Polish Pesa tram at ExpoCityTrans 2014 (photo by Fyodor Lapshin)
The design of the Knights is not new. A couple of years ago, similar three-section Polish Pesa trams appeared in Moscow, commissioned by Uralvagonzavod. But unlike them, the new Knights are a completely Russian development.
Externally, Vityaz-M with slanted headlights and a huge glass area looks modern and pretty. Inside there is a low floor and 60 seats. The total passenger capacity is 260 people. Naturally, there is air conditioner with air conditioning, LED scoreboard and video surveillance system.
The red sign at the stern turns on at stops and tells you to bypass the tram in front
Equipped with new trams and a special navigation system, allowing you to spend a minimum of time at intersections. When a tram approaches a traffic light, the corresponding data is transmitted to it. After that, the signal is promptly switched, giving the tram the right of way. According to carriers, the introduction of this system has reduced the average time that trams lose at traffic lights from 41 seconds to eight. And the waiting time for a tram at stops has decreased by as much as 4.8 times.
I don’t know if this is true, but personally I was waiting for tram number 17 (and the Knights still go only along this route) at the final stop near the Ostankino television center for a very long time. But this has nothing to do with the operation of navigation - there are just not many new cars yet, and I had to miss about a dozen ordinary trams. Well, finally, the Vityaz-M - a long blue "sausage" with a creak passes the turning circle and pulls up to a stop.
You can enter through any door - validators for transport cards are hung throughout the cabin. To get into it, you need to press the button on the door, like on the Lastochka trains on the MCC. The salon itself is very bright, helped by huge side windows. Their size is so large that the cushions of some seats are even placed above the window line - you sit like in an aquarium.
Seat cushion above the window line and below it is a wheel sandbox with light
But to the seats, or rather to their location in the passenger compartment of the tram, I had a claim. In the short central section, seats for passengers are located on the sides - like in the subway. There would be nothing wrong with that, but the width of the passage is such that people passing through this compartment are forced to literally jump over the legs of those who are sitting. And the passenger, who sits at the beginning and at the end of the central section, unwittingly, can easily substitute the walking footboard: one of the legs is guaranteed to be on the turntable.
In general, the developers seemed to think about the legs of passengers in last turn. The front and rear sections of the cabin have twin seats located on podiums above wheeled bogies. The passenger at the window feels good, but his neighbor has to either sit sideways or hang one of his legs into the aisle: the width of the podium does not allow both to be placed in front of him. But along the perimeter of the entire cabin behind the seats are laid led strip, and clusters of monitors with useful and not so useful information hang over the heads of passengers.
And the most best places, in my opinion, in the gallery. Having occupied one of them, I prepared myself for a pleasant journey in silence. But no such luck: on the wheels of one of the carts, it seems, a rolling was formed, from which noise from shocks and vibration spread throughout the cabin. But this is rather a defect of a particular sample. Having driven on another instance, I was convinced of this. And in general, the trip on the new tram left a good impression - nevertheless, it’s not a shame for the state. After all, even with a strange seating arrangement (which can be reconsidered) it is much more pleasant to ride on the Vityaz than on the explosive old trams.
Alas, you have to pay for everything good. The value of the contract for the supply of the Knights to the capital is 56 billion rubles. Dividing this amount by 300, you can estimate the cost of one tram - 186.6 million. Giant money, but this includes not only the tram itself, but also its maintenance over the next thirty years - it is for this period of work that the new Knights are designed. And if the tram is the face of the city, then new trams will significantly rejuvenate it.
Now you can get from Medvedkovo to Ostankino and back by a new generation tram. "Vityaz-M", which accommodates twice as many passengers as the old-style cars, began to run on the 17th route from Friday. On March 17, Sergei Sobyanin visited the Bauman depot. According to the mayor of Moscow, in the next five years, the tram fleet will be updated throughout the city.
Trams polished to a shine meet the mayor at the depot. New items are painted in Blue colour, which has already become traditional for the urban transport of the capital. Designed in Russia and assembled in Tver, these cars are not show cars at all. As early as Friday, trams under the brand name "Vityaz-M" will start operating on Moscow routes, reports .
"Today is a historic moment, tram lines are being launched, passenger service is being launched almost completely Russian tram that meets the highest requirements. It is a competitor in relation to the best world samples. In many ways, he surpasses them," Sobyanin said.
Domestic developers this time really have something to be proud of. The tram turned out to be modern, convenient for drivers and, most importantly, comfortable for passengers. The three-section structure can accommodate up to 260 people. Inside there are places for the disabled and special areas for prams. Work on the routes "Vityazi" will be without turnstiles. Validators for electronic tickets installed at each door. As a result, the Moscow tram will go much faster and with shorter intervals.
"Based on the fact that there are 6 doors, the time of boarding and disembarking on large stopping points decreased by almost five times. Completely low floor, modular cab, climate control, air conditioning both in the passenger compartment and in the cab of the tram driver," said Maxim Liksutov, head of the Department of Transport and Road Infrastructure Development.
The first 13 "Vityaz" ships start their work in the capital from the busiest route - No. 17, which connects Severnoye Medvedkovo and Ostankino. This will already allow soon increase passenger traffic by a third. Then new cars will appear on other most popular routes of the capital. The contract for the purchase of rolling stock, concluded in 2016, turned out to be the largest in Europe.
“So I hope that every year there will be more and more such trams. We signed a contract, and we will buy 100 new such trams every year. Within a few years, the tram fleet will be almost completely updated,” Sobyanin said.
A lot of attention in the capital has recently been paid to infrastructure. Over the past 6 years out of 200 kilometers tram tracks half have been completely renovated. Stop complexes have also been modernized. Now the salon does not need, as they said before, "to rise." After all, the street platform and the floor in the car are on the same level. As a result, metropolitan trams already surpass all other types of transport in terms of efficiency and passenger traffic, second only to the metro.
Andrey Sidorenko, Alexey Komarov, Maxim Pankin, Mikhail Fedorov, "TV Center".
