Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB), in compliance with its strategic plan for 2025, has made a new investment to renew the vehicle fleet in Barcelona's bus network, with the purchase of 98 units with fewer polluting emissions and much more comfortable for travelers. The measure has had a cost of 33 million euros.
The incorporation of new vehicles will mean a significant reduction in polluting emissions. Specifically, with this hundred buses, nitrogen oxide emissions will be reduced by 95%, polluting particles by 97%, and 12% fewer tons of CO2 will be generated per year, compared to the vehicles that were in operation until now.
Of the buses that have been incorporated into the fleet of TMB's regular lines, 74 are natural gas mild hybrid ---19 articulated and 55 standard--- which replace an equal number of buses that ran on diesel and natural gas. The mild hybrid technology reduces the consumption of the combustion engines of vehicles and their level of polluting emissions.
Likewise, the public operator has opted to advance in sustainability regarding the Bus Turístic network that runs through the city with the purchase of 14 hybrid diesel vehicles that comply with more demanding European regulations and replace conventional diesel ones. These units will enter service in the coming weeks.
In this line, 10 diesel minibuses have also been incorporated, which will serve the network that operates in the neighborhoods. It stands out that these units are much more accessible vehicles for travelers.
Last year, TMB redesigned the bus fleet renewal plan with environmental criteria to achieve a significant reduction in polluting effects. With data from January 2022, TMB's bus fleet consisted of 1,135 vehicles, serving 106 lines. The program to replace the most polluting buses establishes that 210 electric and hybrid buses will be acquired, which will replace others with more polluting technologies and 15 years old that reach the end of their useful life between 2021 and 2025.
The new vehicles will be incorporated into conventional lines, the Bus Turístic, and the network that serves the neighborhoodsThis initiative is part of a more ambitious project that foresees an investment of more than 400 million euros in the next six years and that includes not only the purchase of the cleanest buses available for each typology, but also auxiliary vehicles, the necessary infrastructure and the promotion ofhydrogenand of thebiogasas green energies. In TMB's forecasts for the coming yearshybrid, electric, and natural gas buses, in addition to hydrogen ones, will gain weight in the fleet as a whole, so that diesel vehicles represent only 5% in 2025 and end up being residual in 2030.
The president of TMB, Laia Bonet, has highlighted that Barcelona will have one of the cleanest bus fleets in Europe in ten years and that the renewal of vehicles "contributes to improving the air quality of Barcelona and its metropolitan area to improve the quality of life of citizens."