This year the service will incorporate 73 new hybrid vehicles and another six electric ones, already previously tested, which will mean renewing a quarter of the fleet.
Bizkaibus has just started field tests of a new hydrogen-powered bus, which will be tested for a week on the A3141 line between Trapagaran and Cruces. The deputy for Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Miguel Ángel Gómez Viar, explained this Friday that the objective is to check if its characteristics adapt to the orography of Bizkaia and the requirements of the service, as has been done in the past with electric buses. . “It’s about getting it right with what we’re buying and what’s useful.”
The deputy explained that this year the incorporation of 73 new hybrid vehicles and six fully electric vehicles is planned, which will come to represent a quarter of the total Bizkaibus fleet with 336 buses and 106 lines. Gómez Viar has pointed out that it is a “historical effort”, after the tests carried out some time ago with these systems already showed that they were favorable for certain services. He has also pointed out that it takes about a year from the time the vehicles are ordered until they are available with all the necessary requirements, and even longer in the current conflict situation.
The bus that will now be tested between Trapagaran and Barakaldo is an Urbino 12 Hydrogen, from Poland and donated by the company Solaris, of the Basque business group CAF. It is 12 meters long and has a capacity for 90 passengers. It only emits water vapour, it is silent and it will be able to make journeys of about 200 kilometers per day. It will carry out its tests circulating without users behind the vehicle that attends the line, carrying an additional load of 3,500 kilos to check its performance.
refueling tests
The regional official has pointed out this Friday that only the performance of the vehicle will not be tested. “We also want to test the refueling,” he pointed out. This will take place in a hydro generator available at the Aparkabisa facilities. A full charge can take around eight minutes, and allows you to cover great distances.
“It is a technology that is giving very good results, so it is a good option to test to see how it adapts to the characteristics of the Bizkaibus service and to continue advancing in the process of incorporating buses that are increasingly free of polluting emissions”, has defended Gómez Viar, who has remarked that Bizkaia already has “one of the most sustainable fleets in the State”, and that it will be reinforced with the new incorporations.
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