Since 2010 the European Trolleybus Day (ETD) is being celebrated on an annual basis on the first Saturday of the European Mobility Week. It is a day fully dedicated to trolleybuses. With this initiative, the European TROLLEY project calls attention to the trolleybus transport as an important part of sustainable urban mobility in European cities. Activities to promote trolleybuses range from information campaigns and open days at trolleybus depots to children’s painting competitions or sweepstakes.

If you are interested in joining the ETD this information fact sheet will help you to get started.

„Green, clean and smart!” As part of the 4^th annual European Trolleybus Day on 21 September 2013, 27 cities across Europe will promote electric buses as an environmentally friendly and ecologically sustainable form of public transportation. An exciting variety of activities will take place as part of this event.

The following 27 cities are participating in the European Trolleybus Day 2013 and together represent the motto "Green, clean, clever!": Salzburg (Austria), Parma (Italy), Szeged, Debrecen (Hungary), Brno, Plzeň, České Budějovice (Czech Republic), Gdynia, Lublin, Tychy (Poland), Timișoara, Mediaș, Dumbrava Roşie (Romania), Solingen, Eberswalde, Esslingen, Leipzig (Germany), Kaunas (Lithuania), Landskrona (Sweden), Žilina (Slovakia), Bergen (Norway), Arnhem (Netherlands), Leeds , Sandtoft (United Kingdom), Limoges (France),  Castellón  (Spain) and Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan).

On 22 September 2012, the TROLLEY partner cities celebrated the 3rd European Trolleybus Day as part of the European Mobility Week. With this initiative, the TROLLEY partnership called attention to trolleybus transport as an important part of sustainable urban mobility in European cities.

In 2012, with the Polish cities Lublin and Tychy, for the first time non-partner cities organised a European Trolleybus Day. The activities in the participating cities ranged from information campaigns, open days at trolleybus depots and sweepstakes to a European photo competition “My trolleybus – my city!” as well as a design contest in Salzburg. Altogether, more than 100,000 citizens were reached by the partner cities so far during the first three European Trolleybus Days and more than 1 Mio. people have potentially been reached by the media reporting about the events.

As the TROLLEY partners hope that more trolleybus cities will follow this initiative in the future to raise the general public’s awareness of trolleybuses as a clean, electricity-based public transport mode, the TROLLEY partners will pre-Relaxed atmosphere in Salzburg during European Trolleybus Day 2012 TROLLEY’s photo competition “My trolleybus – my city” – Polish competition winner 2012 pare a “starter kit” for trolleybus cities to support the organisation of a European Trolleybus Day.

On 17 September 2011, the second European Trolleybus Day was celebrated in our partner cities Salzburg, Brno, Eberswalde, Gdynia, Parma, Leipzig and Szeged. This is a continution of the first ETD celebrated in 2010. 

Trolleybus Photo Competition 2011 as part of ETD

Part of the 2nd ETD was an international photo contest entitled "My trolleybus - my city" and carried out in all TROLLEY cities. Citizens were asked to submit their favourite trolleybus photo. The audience response was tremendous: 129 participants from 6 countries submitted altogether 250 pictures. The submissions were so attractive that it was difficult to choose one standout. But the jury has voted (25% of the decision was generated through votes of the TROLLEY consortium and a Facebook vote) and the winner was Luigi Muzzi, a 73 year old pensioner from Parma. The jury decided: "The picture conveys a lot of flair and tells a story that conveys sympathy; it is urban, Italian, and shows a feel-good cityscape; it makes reference to history, but, remains enigmatic. The photo plays with the well-proportioned single colour orange. When looking at it, a film starts which conveys a reassuring message. The picture perfectly facilitates identification with the city and the trolleybus."

The jury consisted of Dr. Margit Zuckriegl (Head of the Austrian Photo Gallery), Trude Kaindl–Hönig and Robert Ratzer (photographer), both from the daily newspaper "Salzburger Nachrichten", and the TROLLEY project lead partner Salzburg AG represented by Gunter Mackinger, Johann Kogler and Angelika Gasteiner.

Mr Muzzi was invited to take part in the award ceremony taking place in the framework of TROLLEY's mid-term event on 7 December 2011 in Salzburg (in the premises of the Salzburger Nachrichten). The runners-up were Martin Grill from Brno in the Czech Republic (2^nd place) and Bartosz Zalewski from Gdansk (3^rd place) in Poland. Congratulations to all winners!

It was the first TROLLEY photo contest. Due to the great success a new edition is planned for 2012! To see all winning shoots 2011 browse to our Facebook page!

We hope that other trolleybus cities will follow our initial starting signal and join the ETD festivities across Europe in 2012. If you would like to learn more about this year's European Trolleybus Day and how you can participate, please contact us.