The Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) bus fleet does not trust its future solely to electric vehicles. The public company has just formalized the purchase of 36 new hydrogen buses, which will be added to the eight in circulation for almost two years on the express line X1, which runs between Francesc Macià and Glòries passing through the center of the Catalan capital. Once the testing phase has been completed, the intention is that the hydrogen ones are no longer limited to a single route and can be used on various lines of the network like any other.
Unlike the first hydrogen buses, which were from the manufacturer Caetano, the new units have been awarded to Solaris, the company that has also delivered a large part of the latest electric buses incorporated into the TMB fleet. They are from the same family – the Urbino series – and the same size: 12 meters in length. For travelers, after all, they will be practically the same, although the batteries and technology present important differences between them. The badge attached to the access door will indicate the power source used.
With the incorporation of the new vehicles, scheduled for the second half of the year, there will be 44 hydrogen buses sharing the company’s future with 232 electric ones. This consolidates the commitment to diversification through different technologies that may be hegemonic in the future, one of the priorities of TMB CEO Gerardo Lertxundi until last month.
Apart from these standard buses, TMB will also incorporate two hydrogen-powered articulated vehicles from the same manufacturer on a trial basis. They will be the first hydrogen articulated vehicles that provide regular service in Spain and will be acquired with a subsidy from the JIVE2 project, a European-wide initiative that seeks to promote hydrogen as clean energy for public transport and where TMB is the operator that represents Spain. It was precisely within the framework of this program that the first hydrogen station, managed by Iberdrola, was installed in the Free Zone, designed to supply buses, as well as other professional vehicles that will be powered with this fuel in the future.
The rest of the buses, the 36 of the usual size, will be financed entirely with European Next Generation funds through the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda. The planned investment is 23.3 million euros.
