The Latvian road transport administration, Autotransporta direkcija (ATD), has announced that the Škoda Group has won the contract to supply more than 16 hybrid multiple units (electric + battery-powered electric trains) for regional rail transport.
The contract is worth EUR 160 million and includes a firm order for nine trains and an option for seven more vehicles, as well as the supply of spare parts.
The first vehicles are scheduled to enter service in the first half of 2029. The project to purchase these trains is being financed by the Latvian government and the Cohesion Fund to support the development of zero-emission mobility in Latvia.
The new hybrid multiple units will be designed to operate on 1,520 mm gauge lines, representing a continuous evolution of the regional train platform developed specifically for the Baltic Region’s rail networks.
The trains will operate in two-car formations and will run on 3 kV DC and 25 kV AC 50 Hz power systems. The maximum speed is 160 km/h in electric mode and 120 km/h in battery mode.
The multiple units offer a capacity of up to 188 seats, 24 of which are in first class. The seat configuration in second class is 3+2, and in first class it is 2+2. The trains are adapted for transporting bicycles, for which eight spaces are reserved. Comfortable boarding is ensured by a low-floor design with a floor height of 600 mm above the rail.
The delivery of battery trains for ATD continues the Škoda Group’s successful cooperation in Latvia, where 32 Škoda 16Ev electric multiple units are currently operated by the national operator ViVi. These trains achieve long-term availability of over 99% and have collectively operated over eight million kilometers.
The first battery trains from the Škoda Group, in addition to which technologically new trains for Latvia are to follow, were delivered to the Moravia-Silesia region in the Czech Republic in December 2024. In the first ten months, these units operated a total of over 600,000 kilometers, with almost half of this distance covered in battery mode. The operation of four battery-powered multiple units means annual savings of at least 200,000 liters of diesel fuel and approximately 500 tons of CO2 emissions. Travel times are also shorter, leading to a significant improvement in passenger service quality, which was reflected in a 20% increase in passenger numbers compared to the previous year.
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