A heatwave is coming to Prague: look for yellow-nosed trams to help cool off this summer

Summer is starting in Prague, and temperatures this week should peek at 30 degrees Celsius again. Each summer, residents across Prague are faced with a common complaint: not enough air conditioning in trams and buses across the city.

Only a tenth of public transit in Prague has air conditioning, a number that grows every year when authorities purchase new transport vehicles with air conditioning installed.

Oftentimes, passengers riding public transit will complain about air conditioning when the driver has not turned it on, or not regulated the air conditioning properly. On some buses with A/C, drivers will close all the windows, but fail to properly turn up the air conditioning.

Passengers should tell the driver if they are unhappy with the level of air conditioning on trams with the capability for A/C, said spokeswoman Aneta Řehková.

The 15T ForCity trams with air conditioning first arrived in Prague in 2015, and have been growing in number since. Last year, authorities installed A/C on more than 100 new trams. You can identify the trams with a yellow nose.

This year, despite the coronavirus pandemic, buses and trams with air conditioning will turn up their systems to accommodate passengers.