First look inside TransLink's new four-door articulated trolley buses built in Europe | Daily Hive

The completion of the first Solaris 60-ft articulated trolley bus for TransLink, getting ready for testing in Poland as seen in May 2026. (Marcin Gromadzki Public Transport Consulting)

TransLink’s existing highest-capacity buses, the 60-ft-long articulated bus vehicle, have three doors, which follows the typical standard for the buses used on North American public transit systems.

For the 40-ft-long, regular-sized bus, there are typically two doors.

But the incoming fleet of vehicles set to completely replace Metro Vancouver’s aging trolley bus fleet will have an extra door, located at the very rear of the bus.

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The public transit authority has selected Polish manufacturer Solaris Bus & Coach to replace its entire trolley bus fleet. As previously reported by Daily Hive Urbanized in March 2025, TransLink’s future trolley buses will be based on the company’s “Trollino” model and be built in Europe.

Currently, there are 262 vehicles in the existing trolley bus fleet built in the 2000s by Winnipeg-based New Flyer, including 74 vehicles of 60-ft-long, two-door articulated buses and 188 vehicles of 40-ft-long, regular-sized, two-door buses.

A TransLink spokesperson confirmed to Daily Hive Urbanized this week that they will be ordering 275 trolley buses from Solaris, representing a net gain of 13 vehicles. This includes 183 vehicles of 40-ft-long, three-door buses and 92 vehicles of 60-ft-long articulated buses.

translink solaris 60 ft articulated trolley bus

The completion of the first Solaris 60-ft articulated trolley bus for TransLink, getting ready for testing in Poland as seen in May 2026. (Marcin Gromadzki Public Transport Consulting)

The very first of the new 60-ft-long articulated trolley buses recently reached completion on the production line, and Solaris earlier this month began preparing its manufacturer’s testing process of the pilot vehicle in Poland — before it is shipped off to Metro Vancouver for further extensive testing by TransLink at some point in the future.

This first new 60-ft-long articulated trolley bus has four doors, with the extra door situated at the very end of the bus — where there is typically a bank of seating on the existing buses. The new vehicle otherwise has an interior configuration and materials that generally resemble what TransLink riders are used to, with some slight differences in seating layouts in certain areas.

Furthermore, some of the seats are red in colour — not the usual blue — as a possible design feature to clearly visually indicate priority seating for seniors, pregnant women, people travelling with young children, and those with disabilities. Currently, on existing vehicles, priority seating is only indicated by signage stickers next to the seats.

The completion of the first Solaris 60-ft articulated trolley bus for TransLink, getting ready for testing in Poland as seen in May 2026. (Marcin Gromadzki Public Transport Consulting)

As well, the interior does not appear to have any pull-down cords along the length of the windows for riders to request a stop. But there appear to be many more push buttons for such a request to be conveniently made.

However, TransLink’s spokesperson emphasized that at this time, the design of their custom-designed variant of Solaris’ Trollino bus for the 60-ft-long articulated bus has yet to be finalized.

But as previously reported by Daily Hive Urbanized earlier this year, the design process for the new 40-ft-long trolley bus is much further along, with the inclusion of an extra door — a third door — at the rear of the vehicle.

The spokesperson also highlighted that compared to the typical 40-ft buses currently used by TransLink, the new trolley buses will have an additional LED next stop display. The new 40-ft trolley buses will have two of these displays instead of only the usual one at the front of the vehicle.

Additionally, unlike the existing trolley bus fleet, all Solaris vehicles will come equipped with air conditioning for enhanced passenger comfort during warmer weather. TransLink has required air conditioning in all bus orders since 2012, making the current trolley buses among the last to operate without it.

The completion of the first Solaris 60-ft articulated trolley bus for TransLink, getting ready for testing in Poland as seen in May 2026. (Marcin Gromadzki Public Transport Consulting)

Through a bidding process, TransLink chose Solaris to build its new fleet of trolley buses not only because it was cost competitive and could meet the established delivery timelines to replace the aging buses, but because their trolley buses have advanced battery technology that can also go off the overhead electrical wires for a long distance of up to 20 km, with in-motion recharging of the battery when reconnected to the wires. This offers greatly enhanced resiliency, redundancy, and flexibility for how the future trolley buses can be operated.

In stark contrast, TransLink’s existing trolley buses can only travel less than one km when disconnected from the wires.

The first new 40-ft-long trolley bus will arrive in Metro Vancouver later this year to begin TransLink’s local testing process. It has yet to be determined when the first 60-ft-long articulated model could arrive for similar testing.

After the successful local testing of the buses, TransLink anticipates there will be consistent mass production and arrivals of the new fleet starting in 2028.

The completion of the first Solaris 60-ft articulated trolley bus for TransLink, getting ready for testing in Poland as seen in May 2026. (Marcin Gromadzki Public Transport Consulting)

Although New Flyer manufactures trolley buses and supplied TransLink’s current fleet of trolley buses and many of its other buses, the Canadian company’s production backlog is well known within the bus manufacturing industry. A November 2024 report indicated that New Flyer had a years-long backlog worth about $12 billion — equivalent to roughly 14,000 buses 00 with 42 per cent consisting of zero-emission vehicles. Canada’s other major bus manufacturer, Nova Bus, owned by Volvo, does not produce trolley buses.

As for the new SkyTrain vehicle fleet for the Expo and Millennium lines, as of the middle of last month, TransLink has put in service eight five-car-long articulated Mark V trains (40 cars), with another three trains (15 cars) in the process of local testing. TransLink has currently ordered a total of 47 Mark V trains (235 cars), which means there are still an additional 39 train deliveries (195 cars) to go from Alstom’s manufacturing plants in Eastern Canada as of last month.

The initial wave of Mark V arrivals are being used to retire the entirety of SkyTrain’s fleet of 150 Mark I cars from the 1980s and early 1990s, before the later arrivals are used to provide a general system capacity increase for the Expo/Millennium network and meet the needs of the Millennium Line’s Broadway extension to Arbutus, opening in Fall 2027, and the Expo Line’s Surrey-Langley extension, opening in late 2029. Since last summer, the deliveries have been occurring at a frequency of roughly one train (five cars) per month.

As of mid-April 2026, 34 Mark I cars have been retired, with some being repurposed for new creative legacy uses and others sent to the scrapyard.

The last Mark V train in the current order is expected to arrive in 2029, but this will be seamlessly followed by the continued arrival of additional vehicles well into the 2030s from a future exercise of TransLink’s options to order even more Mark V trains — for the specific purpose of retiring all of the Mark II trains from the 2000s.

translink solaris pilot trolley bus 2026

TransLink’s pilot 40-ft Solaris trolley bus, as seen in Poland in March 2026. (Marcin Gromadzki Public Transport Consulting)

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