Tbilisi Signed a Tram Line That Still Has No Cars

Tbilisi signed a GEL 287,654,321 design-and-build deal on September 7, 2026, for a 7.5-kilometer tram line that does not include the trams. Mayor Kakha Kaladze stood with a Turkish joint venture and called it a new page in the capital’s transport history. The cars still have to be specified, tendered, and paid for later.

Tbilisi Signed a Line That Still Has No Cars

The contract covers drawings, permits, tracks, systems, a depot, testing, and commissioning. Giorgi Sharkov, director-general of Tbilisi Transport Company, signed for the city. Halit Emre Yilmaz signed for EYE, the joint venture of EmreRay, Yüksel, and Erk.

City Council chair Zurab Abashidze, Deputy Mayor Giorgi Tkemaladze, and Turkey’s ambassador to Georgia, Mustafa Türker Arı, sat in the room. Kaladze thanked the ruling Georgian Dream team and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze. The Turkish embassy in Tbilisi posted photos of the table, naming EmreRay chief executive Metin Yılmaz among the guests.

ვულოცავთ თბილისს! თბილისში ტრამვაის ხაზის პროექტთან დაკავშორებით კონტრაქტი გაფორმდა თბილისის მუნიციპალიტეტსა და კომპანია „ემრეის“ შორის. ცერემონიას ესწრებოდნენ: თბილისის მერი კახა კალაძე, ელჩი მუსტაფა თურქერ არი და „ემრეის“ აღმასრულებელი დირექტორი მეთინ ილმაზი. თბილისი, 7.09.2026 pic.twitter.com/ymlFXnJcek

— Türkiye in Georgia (@TC_TiflisBE) September 7, 2026

Kaladze said a separate tender will buy 10 trams. The depot is sized for 11 units, a 10-plus-1 fleet. The civil contract is a single-responsibility design-and-build contract. Alternative bids and alternative completion times were not allowed.

The 36-month clock starts with a conceptual design, then a detailed design, then building. Twenty-four of those months are set aside for construction. With extra city procedures, officials still talk of finishing within four years. That is a rails job. It is not a ride.

The Lowest Bid Undercut the City’s Own Estimate

Tbilisi Transport Company had put the works at GEL 416,592,000. EYE came in 31 percent under that figure, a gap of GEL 128,937,679, or about $110 million at the contract price. Three other foreign bidders stayed much closer to the city’s number. No Georgian firm made the list.

THE FOUR BIDS

Those four bids on the public ledger closed on March 31, 2026, at 16:00 Tbilisi time. Doğuş almost matched the estimate. Wuhan, a Chinese municipal builder, sat about GEL 19 million below it. YDA İnşaat, which later complained, bid GEL 44,794,843 more than EYE.

A low bid can be skill, or it can be a bet that claims will fill the gap once the ground is open. The tender file asked for tram, railway, or metro work of similar size. It also asked for money on the books. Whether a 31 percent discount still builds 7.5 kilometers of street track and a depot is now a delivery problem, not a scoring one.

What the City Tore Up in 2006

Kaladze likes to say the last government pulled the tram out of Tbilisi. The shutdown is older than his rivalry. Horse cars started in April 1883. Electric service arrived in 1904. By 1965 the fleet had 299 cars, and the network once stretched about 105 kilometers.

THE LONG ROAD BACK TO RAILS

1. April 1883: Horse trams begin service in Tbilisi.
2. 1904: The lines are electrified.
3. 1965: The fleet reaches 299 cars on a network that peaked near 105 kilometers.
4. 2000: Eight tram lines are still running.
5. 2005: Only Route 12 remains.
6. December 4, 2006: The last tram and the trolleybuses stop on the same day; 15 tramcars are left.
7. October 21, 2025: Tbilisi Transport Company opens the first design-and-build tender.
8. February 13, 2026: The city relaunches the tender after rewriting technical terms.
9. July 15, 2026: Kaladze names EYE the winner.
10. September 7, 2026: The contract is signed, 19 years after the 2006 shutdown.

City hall in 2006 called the system worn out and too dear to power. Rails and cars later went to scrap. A few poles still hold street lights. A handful of old bodies survive as cafes. An empty depot sits at Avchala. The first 2025 tender was pulled after the paperwork on trees and pedestrian crossings, among other technical points, had to be rewritten. Revival talk had come and gone for years. This file is the first one that reached a signature.

ADB Paperwork on a State-Budget Job

Speeches keep citing Asian Development Bank procurement rules. The bank’s December 2024 standard design-build bidding document is the template. The money is not Manila’s. Tbilisi Transport Company, which the city fully owns, wrote that the buying is not financed by any international financial institution and is paid only from Georgia’s state budget.

That split is easy to miss. ADB rules bring a 14-day protest window, a one-envelope contest without prequalification, and a GEL 9,000,000 bid bond. They do not bring an ADB loan for this line. The same week ADB was in the news for a $250 million Tbilisi bypass road loan, a different job. The tram is a Georgian invoice dressed in donor procedure.

Bids had to stay valid for 180 days from the March 31 deadline. A pre-bid meeting and a site visit were held on March 6 at the company’s offices on Station Square. Lasha Gelashvili, head of procurement, ran the file. The invitation listed tramline construction and tramway depot work as the CPV codes, and nothing for rolling stock.

A Rival Says EYE Cannot Build the Depot

YDA İnşaat, working with Gülermak, took the award to Georgia’s State Procurement Agency after July 15. Their complaint said the tender required depot design and depot building experience, and that EYE did not have it. They asked for EYE to be thrown out and for the contract to move to them. City hall said it would look at the filing.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The complaint: YDA-Gülermak argued EYE failed the depot experience test and should be disqualified.
• The prices: YDA’s bid was GEL 332,449,164, which is GEL 44,794,843 above EYE.
• The city’s line: Sharkov said the tender commission had already answered and that the challenge would not delay the work.
• The signature: The contract was signed on September 7, 2026, anyway.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A final ruling: Whether every protest channel is closed has not been laid out in public.
• The tram bill: Sharkov said the cost of the 10 cars is still unknown and waits on a market study.
• Street layout: Whether car lanes will be narrowed to make room for tracks is still a design choice.

EmreRay, founded in 1994, is the name on the bid form and the rail specialist in the joint venture. Its own completed-work list includes the 7.3-kilometer Eminonu-Kabatas tram works in Istanbul, a 17-kilometer light-rail job in Eskişehir, and electrification on the Antalya system. The firm says it holds about 80 percent of Turkey’s railway electrification construction. YDA’s Kayseri tram, about 5.5 kilometers, was the experience it put up. Wuhan brought a Chinese municipal construction group. Doğuş is a large general builder. The scoring picked the cheapest envelope.

Didi Digomi Still Reaches Didube by Bus

The line is meant to start at the junction of Didi Digomi’s 3rd and 4th microdistricts, run along Davit Aghmashenebeli Avenue through Digomi, and meet Didube metro station on Line 1. That is the growing north-west of the city trying to reach a transfer hub, not a downtown loop. Kaladze has said buses and minibuses will share the central boulevard with the tram, and that the point is to cut the load on those vehicles.

Giorgi Japaridze, who runs the “My city is killing me” campaign, warned that the geometry will decide whether the line helps. If the tram shares space with buses, he said, traffic need not get worse. If a separate tram road is cut by shrinking car lanes on Robakidze Avenue or other main roads, he said, the city’s already jammed northern gate could tighten further. That fight sits inside the design stage EYE has now been paid to open.

A single tram line cannot solve the capital’s transport problems, nor do we intend to claim that it can, but major changes always begin with a first step. We want this line to mark the start of the development of a modern tram network and a new phase for Tbilisi’s transport system.

Kakha Kaladze, Mayor of Tbilisi, at the September 7, 2026 signing

He first sold the return of the tram in August 2025, while running again for city hall. The stub is 7.5 kilometers and 11 stops. He has already said it will not fix Tbilisi on its own. Residents of Didi Digomi still ride buses toward Didube, and will for as long as the drawings, the car tender, and the 24-month build all take.

The Cars Wait on a Later Tender

Sharkov said EYE has about eight months to write the technical specifications for the vehicles. After that the city will study the market and open a second tender for 10 cars, each meant to hold at least 300 passengers. He would not price the fleet. The civil contract does not carry it.

REMAINING STEPS BEFORE ANYONE BOARDS

• Drawings: Conceptual design, then detailed design, including the vehicle specification pack.
• The car tender: A separate buy for 10 trams, after the eight-month spec window and a market study.
• Civil works: Twenty-four months of construction inside the 36-month EYE contract, plus testing and commissioning.
• The extra year: City hall still quotes four years once administrative steps are folded in.
• Operations: Integration with the rest of the city’s buses and metro, which is promised and not yet designed in public.

Kaladze used the language of a groundbreaking on signing day. The file in front of EYE still begins with paper. The depot will have covered stabling, a wash plant, an admin block, and emergency gates, sized for 11 sets. Until the second tender lands, those roads lead to an empty shed.

Tbilisi now has a named contractor, a locked price 31 percent under its own estimate, and a route on the map. It does not have a tram it can board. The last time the city had one, in December 2006, it shut the wires and sold the steel.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who won the Tbilisi tram design-build contract?

EYE, a Turkish joint venture of EmreRay, Yüksel, and Erk, won with a bid of GEL 287,654,321. EmreRay was the name on the e-procurement form. Bidders had to post a GEL 9,000,000 bank guarantee, and offers had to stay valid for 180 days after March 31, 2026.

Does the Tbilisi tram contract include the vehicles?

No. The signed job is tracks, systems, and a depot only. A later tender is planned for 10 tramcars after EYE writes the specifications, a process Sharkov put at about eight months from the September 7, 2026 signature, followed by a market study. Each car is supposed to hold at least 300 passengers. The price has not been set.

When did Tbilisi close its old tram network?

On December 4, 2006, the last tram and the trolleybuses stopped on the same day. Fifteen tramcars were left in service that year, down from 299 in 1965. Officials at the time cited worn kit and the cost of electricity, and hundreds of drivers and workshop staff lost the work.

Who is paying for the Didi Digomi tram line?

Georgia’s state budget, through Tbilisi Transport Company, a firm fully owned by the city. The invitation for bids states that no international financial institution is funding the contract, even though the paperwork follows the Asian Development Bank’s December 2024 design-build template and a 14-day protest period.