| Dushanbe trolleybus system | |
|---|---|
 A Trolza ZiU-682-016 trolleybus in Dushanbe, 2010. | |
| Operation | |
| Locale | Dushanbe, Tajikistan |
| Open | 1955 |
| Status | Open |
| Routes | 8 (as at 2006) |
| Operator(s) | "Душанбенаклиётхадамотрасон" Passenger Unitary Enterprise |
| Infrastructure | |
| Depot(s) | 2 |
| Stock | ~ 200 (2015) [1] |
The Dushanbe trolleybus system forms part of the public transport network of Dushanbe, the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. In operation since 1955. The system presently comprises eight routes as of 2006.
The development of electric transport in Dushanbe (then called Stalinabad) was authorised on 6 April 1955, when, according to decision no 106 of the Stalinabad City Council executive committee, a trolleybus management agency was established. [2]
On 1 May 1955, amidst great festivities, the first city trolleybuses operated the inaugural services along the main thoroughfare of the republic - then named Lenin Avenue (now Rudaki Prospect). They were Engels MTB-82D trolleybuses, produced at the Uritskogo plant. The first route extended only 11 km (7 mi) from the city centre, and ran from via Lenin Avenue to the railway station. [2]
In 1957, line no 2 was opened, and in 1958 line no 3. By the time the second trolleybus depot was commissioned in 1967, the length of the overhead wire network had increased to 49 km (30 mi). There were nine routes, 65 trolleybuses, and 700 workers. [2]
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and disruption of oil supplies that periodically occurred in Tajikistan in the 1990s, urban transport in Dushanbe experienced significant problems. The fleet of conventional buses all but ceased to exist, and therefore the main forms of passenger transport in the streets were trolleybuses. During the oil shortage, all the existing electric rolling stock was pressed into service, including maintenance trucks and KTH-1 trolleybuses produced by the Kiev electric factory. The number of trolleybuses that were in operation in the late 1980s had reached 250 ZiU-682 vehicles; by the end of the 1990s, the fleet had declined to 45-50 units and the route network had shrunk. [2]
Since independence, Tajikistan has acquired 27 second hand trolley buses, each a minimum of 10 years old. In an effort to maintain existing rolling stock made in the mid-1990s, a batch of trolleybuses was sent to Kazakhstan for major repairs at the Alma-Ata tram and trolleybus plant, but due to a lack of funding they were never repaired, and there was no money to "return" them back to Dushanbe. [2]
In summer 2000, to solve the problem of updating the Dushanbe trolleybus fleet, Ikarus 260 and Ikarus 280 bus bodies, intended for conversion into trolleybuses, were delivered to the 1st trolleybus depot. The task of designing and installing power equipment was assigned to the leading electrician at the depot, N.H. Salahitdinovu. His crew of mechanics and electricians coped with the task - six buses were converted to trolleybuses during 2001 - giving them two extra years of service life. [2]
On 9 September 2004, the mayor of Dushanbe, Mahmadsayid Ubaydullayev, and the CEO of the Russian JSC "Trolza-Market", Paul Berlin, signed a contract for the procurement of 100 new trolley buses to meet Dushanbe's public transport needs. The first deliveries of new trolleybuses under this contract began in the summer and autumn of 2005, and the last, one hundredth, machine arrived in April 2006. With the commissioning of the new machines, older trolleybuses in the fleet were withdrawn. [2]
As of 2006, Dushanbe had eight trolleybus lines: nos 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 12 and 14.
The Dushanbe trolleybus system has a few operational features that have become conventional in recent years.
As of 2017 the first concerns the method of payment for travel and loading procedures. Each serving trolleybus has a crew of 2 persons. One is the driver and the second one collects the ticket fee and remounts the collector in case it jumps off. A ticket costs currently 1 Somoni for an adult.
Due to the significant deterioration of the overhead wire network, the current collectors come down frequently. The ticket person is therefore trained and able to remount the collectors in less than one minute.
As at August 2011, the current fleet of Dushanbe trolleybuses was based upon the standard ZiU-9 trolleybus design:
All Dushanbe trolleybuses are painted in the system's standard white and green livery.
The Dushanbe system has two depots.
A trolleybus is an electric bus that draws power from dual overhead wires using spring-loaded trolley poles. Two wires, and two trolley poles, are required to complete the electrical circuit. This differs from a tram or streetcar, which normally uses the track as the return path, needing only one wire and one pole. They are also distinct from other kinds of electric buses, which usually rely on batteries. Power is most commonly supplied as 600-volt direct current, but there are exceptions.
Dushanbe is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. As of March 2024, Dushanbe had a population of 1,564,700, with this population being largely Tajik. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe, and from 1929 to 1961 as Stalinabad, after Joseph Stalin. Dushanbe is located in the Gissar Valley, bounded by the Gissar Range in the north and east and the Babatag, Aktau, Rangontau and Karatau mountains in the south, and has an elevation of 750–930 m. The city is divided into four districts: Ismail Samani, Avicenna, Ferdowsi, and Shah Mansur.
Tajik Air is a flag carrier airline of Tajikistan. It has its head office at Dushanbe International Airport in Dushanbe. The airline's main hub is Dushanbe International Airport.
The ZiU-5 is a Soviet trolleybus model that was built by the Uritsky factory. The ZiU acronym stands for Zavod imeni Uritskogo, which translates as Plant named after Uritskiy. This model of city trolleybus was in mass production from 1959 to 1972. The total number of ZiU-5s produced exceeded 14,500 vehicles. This allowed the ZiU-5 to become dominant model of trolleybus in Soviet towns and cities of that time. The last vehicles were withdrawn from active service in the mid-1980s. The small number of surviving vehicles are kept now for museum purposes.
Dushanbe International Airport is an international airport in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. It is the main hub for Somon Air and is the home base for Tajik Air, which also has its headquarters on the property.
ZiU-9, or ZIU-9 is a Soviet trolleybus. Other names for the ZiU-9 are ZiU-682 and HTI-682. The ZiU acronym stands for Zavod imeni Uritskogo, which is a factory named after Moisei Uritsky, the Russian revolutionary. Before 1996 this acronym was also a trademark of the vehicle manufacturer Trolza. The ZiU-9 was first built in 1966, although it was only put into mass production in 1972 and it was still assembled along with other more advanced trolleybus vehicles in the Trolza factory until 2015. The total number of produced ZiU-9s exceeds 42,000 vehicles making it the most produced trolleybus in the world. In addition, many copies of ZiU-9 were made in other factories of the former Soviet bloc.
Trolza, formerly known as the Uritsky factory or simply Uritsky, was a trolleybus manufacturer in Russia, located in Engels, Saratov oblast.
The public transport in Sofia consists of a comprehensive network of bus, trolleybus, tram and metro lines. It is overseen by the Sofia Urban Mobility Center, a municipal enterprise responsible for route planning, scheduling, fare collection and ticket inspection. It also pays the various transport operators for their service on a per-kilometer basis. Sofia is the only city in Bulgaria that operates the four modes of public transport.
The Sofia trolleybus system forms part of the public transport network of Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria.
The Burgas trolleybus system forms part of the public transport network of the Black Sea city and municipality of Burgas, the fourth most populous city, and the largest and most important port, in Bulgaria.
The Ulaanbaatar trolleybus system forms part of the public transport network in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia. It is Mongolia's only trolleybus system.
The Yerevan trolleybus system forms part of the public transport network in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia. Since the closure of the Gyumri trolleybus system in 2005, it has been Armenia’s only trolleybus system.
The Córdoba trolleybus system is part of the public transport network in Córdoba, the capital city of Córdoba Province, Argentina.
The Mingachevir trolleybus system was a system of trolleybuses forming part of the public transport arrangements in Mingachevir, the fourth most populous city in Azerbaijan, for about 15 years at the turn of the 21st century.
The Ganja trolleybus system was a system of trolleybuses forming part of the public transport arrangements in Ganja, the second most populous city in Azerbaijan, for most of the second half of the 20th century.
The Baku trolleybus system was a system of trolleybuses forming part of the public transport arrangements in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, for about 65 years from 1941.
The Schaffhausen trolleybus system is part of the public transport network of Schaffhausen, capital city of the canton of Schaffhausen, Switzerland, and the adjacent town of Neuhausen am Rheinfall in the same canton. It is also Switzerland's youngest and smallest such system. Its route, designated as line 1, connects among others Schaffhausen railway station with the Rhine Falls.
The Stara Zagora trolleybus system forms part of the public transport network of Stara Zagora, Bulgaria.
The Ikarus 415T is a type of trolleybus produced by the Ikarus bus manufacturer in Hungary in 1992 and between 1997 and 2002.
{{cite web}}: External link in |work={{cite web}}: External link in |work= 
Media related to Trolleybuses in Tajikistan at Wikimedia Commons