Alstom Citadis

The Citadis is a family of low-floor trams built by Alstom in La Rochelle, France, and Barcelona, Spain. More than 1140 Citadis trams are in use in over 28 cities, including: Bordeaux, Grenoble, Lyon, Montpellier, Rouen, Orléans, the Paris area, and Barcelona, Dublin, Istanbul, Gdańsk, Katowice, Adelaide, Melbourne, Jerusalem, Rabat, Casablanca, Tunis and Rotterdam outside France.

Citadis types
The Citadis family includes both partially low-floor and 100% low-floor trams, in versions with three, five, and seven sections.

The Citadis family comprises:
 * Citadis 301 – also three section but with 70% low floor (Dublin).
 * Citadis 302 – five carbody sections, 100% low floor (Paris T2 and NET)
 * Citadis 401 – five sections, 70% low floor (Montpellier and Dublin)
 * Citadis 402 – seven carbody sections, 100% low floor (Bordeaux, Dublin, Grenoble, Paris T3)
 * Citadis 403 – seven sections, with modified end bogie design (Strasbourg)
 * Citadis 301 CIS – three sections, 100% low floor, IPOMOS bogies for Russian gauge (Moscow)
 * Regio-Citadis – three sections, 70% low floor (Kassel, The Hague, Salzgitter)
 * Citadis-Dualis – derived from the Citadis series and adapted both to tramway lines and regional railway tracks, it will be operated by the SNCF (see below)

The 70% low-floor “Regio-Citadis” variant allows for tram-train operation, in which trams run also on mainline railway tracks; it is used in the German city Kassel, and has been delivered for The Hague. This train type is having possibilities of duo-powering (diesel/600 VDC, 600 VDC/1,5 kV 16 Hz or 600 VDC/Bioenergy/diesel).

The Regio-Citadis model has now been superseded by "Citadis-Dualis", redesigned to operate on the same lines as regional trains (on the TER (Transport express régional) network) and intended for running at up to 100 km/h, compared to 70 km/h for the Citadis tram), and for stop spacings ranging from 0.5 to 5 km. 31 have been ordered (plus 169 on option ) by the SNCF at an average cost of €3.2 million per car (about $4.94 million or £2.5 million).

Like most trams, Citadis vehicles are usually powered by overhead electric wires, but the trams in Bordeaux, Angers, and Reims (and in the future Dubai) use the “APS” (ground-level power supply), a third rail which is only powered while it is completely covered by a tram so that there is no risk of a person or animal coming into contact with a live rail. In outer areas, the trams switch to conventional overhead wires.

Competitors to the Citadis include Bombardier Transportation's Flexity family (Outlook, Swift, Classic, and the Link tram-train), Siemens Combino and Avanto trams, Škoda ForCity, Ansaldo Sirio and TMK 2200 from Crotram.