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ZiU-9 (in Russian ЗиУ-9) is the Soviet (and later Russian) trolleybus vehicle. Other names and indexes for the same vehicle include ZiU-682 and HTI-682 (respectively ЗиУ-682 and ХТИ-682 in Russian letters). The ZiU acronym stands for Zavod imeni Uritskogo, which means plant named after Moisei Uritsky, the Russian revolutionary. Before 1996 this acronym was also a trademark of the vehicle manufacturer. It has been changed to Trolza. The ZiU-9 was put in mass production in 1971 and it is still assembled along with other more advanced trolleybus vehicles on the Trolza (former ZiU) factory. The total number of produced ZiU-9s exceeds 40,000 vehicles. This model is the most numerous trolleybus vehicle in the world.
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History and development [link]
The explosion-like development of trolleybus systems in the Soviet Union in the 1960s required a large number of trolleybus vehicles. The mainstay of the contemporary Soviet trolley fleet, the ZiU-5, was not sufficient for huge urban passenger transfers. It was more suited for medium-size cities rather than large megapolises such as Moscow or Saint Petersburg. In addition the ZiU-5 had an aluminium hull, which was expensive and complicated from a technological point of view. The two doors in the ZiU-5 hull ends did not work well in overcrowded situations which were quite common in Soviet public transportation.
The ZiU-9 was a quite successful attempt to solve this problems. It has one extra door compared to the ZiU-5. Two doors are wide and placed in the middle and rear end of the vehicle hull. One small door in the front end of the vehicle was/is comfortable for the driver and for outgoing passengers. The hull of the ZiU-9 is a welded steel one and it is significantly cheaper and simpler in production than the hull of the ZiU-5. The external appearance of the ZiU-9 was influenced by contemporary German-made MAN trolleybuses.
The electrical equipment of the ZiU-9 had some minor differences from the ZiU-5. The power of the main motor was increased. The indirect resistor-based control system of electric current was slightly modified to deal with the increased power of the main motor. While western designers developed new semiconductor-based control devices, Soviet engineers decided to leave the old resistor-based system for service simplicity. The first prototype vehicles were tested in Moscow in 1971 and were approved for mass production after some minor design adjustments.
The '9' in the vehicle name was the initial project index of the design team. However, after launching mass production, the new trolleybus received a new index '682' from the united classification of non-rail public transport vehicles. So all series vehicles had a ZiU-682 designation. But the number 682 is difficult to pronounce and the shorter '9' still lives in the everyday language of drivers and servicemen. In 1986, the new classification was introduced and the former ZiU-682 was designated as HTI-682. But this was not an end of renaming the same vehicle. The Russian acronym HTI in the Cyrillic alphabet is ХТИ and these three Cyrillic letters in 1995 were confused with the Latin letters XTU. This Latin acronym became an official name of the vehicle.
Modifications [link]
During mass-production there were some improvements of the ZiU-9 design. Any major change is designated by a letter after the '9' or '682' index:
- (1971) ZiU-9 - first prototype vehicles
- (1972) ZiU-9B (ЗиУ-9Б) - first large-series vehicles
- (1976) ZiU-9V (ЗиУ-9В) - major improvements in electric equipment
ZiU-9G / ZiU-682G / ЗиУ-9Г Modification (1992) [link]
- door gear was changed from electric to pneumatic, the vehicle frame was lightened, so the active service life became shorter.
- By the late 1980s separate elements of trolleybus construction, which were released on that moment were 20 years old, and became significantly obsolete. That's why meanwhile with the release of last ZIU-682V copies, the manufacturers prepared to a much deeper level of modernizations, designated as ZIU-682G ЗиУ-682Г. Experimental copies of ZIU 682G ЗиУ-682Г were released still in 1988, and starting with February 1, 1991 the manufacturer switched completely to the production of ZIU 682G model.
This variant is in mass-production now, the cheapest trolleybus in the domestic market of Russia. The full official name with minor improvement designations is XTU-682ГОЕ-012.
Many factories in modern Russia or Belarus developed their unlicensed or semi-licenced copies of the ZiU-9 design. They may have different designations and trademarks, but in the colloquial language all of them are referred to as "ZiU-9 clones".
Operators [link]
ZiU-9s worked or are now working in all ex-USSR countries except the Baltic states. They were also sold to Greece, Argentina, in Colombia the EDTA (Empresa Distrital de Transportes Asociados) was a larger operator of these buses; they was in a very bad conservation state, and the former Eastern Bloc countries. Three cars were on loan in 1973 for testing purposes in Helsinki, Finland. In 2004, the ILPAP, the operator of trolleybusses in Athens, Greece donated nearly all of its old ZiU-9 trolleybuses to the city of Belgrade, although Belgrade had ZiU-9 trolleys of its own since late 1970s. In 2010 a public action was taken to save Belgrade's first ZiU-9 from being sold to scrapyard. One was donated to the East Anglia Transport Museum.
In Hungary, Ziu-9 trolleys still operate in Budapest (BKV), Debrecen (DKV) and used to operate in Szeged (SzKT).
External links [link]
- ZiU-9 on the Nizhny Novgorod tram site (in Russian)
- Trolleybus in Budapest - Ziu 9 trolibuses (English, somewhat dated)
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