Cegelec developed a cost-effective and environment-friendly solution to modernise a potential market of over 15,000 cars in Eastern and Central Europe. Cegelec is uniquely qualified to offer Eastern and Central European public transport companies a solution to extend the life cycle of their cars, of Russian origin and still in good condition, rather than making major investments to acquire new vehicles. Cegelec's approach consists of replacing the traditional resistor-based traction system by its DC technology TVM Progress.
The Cegelec technology offers a series of additional benefits. It allows savings in operational costs of over 30 per cent by recuperating energy in braking mode. Having practically no moving parts, TVM Progress dramatically improves reliability and significantly limits maintenance costs. In addition, it behaves like the existing system so that related equipment and infrastructures don't need to be replaced or modified. So far 22 urban transport authorities, including the ones from Prag and Budapest, have adopted the Cegelec technology, and it is estimated that well over 15,000 tramways, trolleys and metro cars could benefit from this solution. Cegelec has set up a dedicated engineering and assembly facility in Prague where the traction equipment of over 650 vehicles has been manufactured to date.