Ostrava is about to become one of the larger electric bus cities in Central Europe. Dopravní podnik Ostrava (DPO), the city's public transport operator, has signed a framework agreement with Polish manufacturer Solaris covering the delivery of up to 70 Urbino 12 electric buses in 2027 and 2028 — described by both parties as one of the largest electric bus tenders completed in the Czech Republic to date, and one of the largest vehicle purchases in DPO's own history.
What was ordered
The contract is a framework agreement rather than a single fixed batch, which gives DPO the option to draw down vehicles as budget and route planning allow. Solaris won the tender on the most economically advantageous bid.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Operator | Dopravní podnik Ostrava (DPO) |
| Vehicle | Solaris Urbino 12 electric |
| Quantity | Up to 70 |
| Delivery | 2027 and 2028 |
| Range variants | Up to 350 km and up to 250 km |
| Charging | Plug-in, primarily overnight at the depot |
Splitting the order across two battery configurations is the operationally interesting decision. Rather than buying one specification and accepting that some buses carry dead weight on short city routes, DPO can match the vehicle to the duty cycle — the longer-range version for interurban and high-mileage work, the smaller pack where a 250 km day is comfortably enough. Every bus gets air conditioning and advanced safety systems as standard.
Depot charging keeps the infrastructure bill down. Overnight plug-in charging avoids the cost and street-works disruption of pantograph masts or opportunity charging at termini, at the price of needing enough battery to complete a full service day without a top-up — which is exactly what the 350 km variant buys.
Ostrava has been here before
This is not a first step. DPO ordered 24 Urbino 12 electric buses from Solaris in March 2021, delivered by 2022, and those were the manufacturer's first electric buses in the Czech Republic. Solaris has now supplied Ostrava with more than 450 buses and trolleybuses in total, so the new agreement extends a long-standing relationship rather than opening one.
The city has been buying elsewhere too, with an order for 16 Škoda 26Tr battery trolleybuses also due for 2027 delivery. Between the two contracts, a substantial share of Ostrava's fleet renewal over the next three years is battery-electric.
The wider Czech and European picture
Ostrava is a heavy-industry city in Moravia-Silesia with air quality problems that predate any climate target, which makes municipal transport an unusually direct lever. Buses are also where European electrification is furthest ahead of passenger cars: zero-emission truck and bus registrations across the EU rose again in the first half of 2026, and city buses are the segment where total-cost-of-ownership maths has favoured electric for several years.
For Czech readers the order lands alongside a broader shift in domestic manufacturing — Škoda has just started series production of the Peaq in Mladá Boleslav. The country is buying electric public transport and building electric cars at the same time, and Ostrava's tender is the larger of the two commitments in absolute vehicle numbers.