EMT Madrid awards 150 e-buses to Irizar e-mobility and Solaris (90 and 60 units respectively)

EMT Madrid has awarded a batch of 150 electric buses (for 81 million euros), the largest procurement of e-buses issued by the operator so far. Winners? Irizar e-mobility and Solaris. It has been announced by the transport company with a press release. The buses are set to be delivered in 2022 and 2023. EMT Madrid targets a full zero emission bus fleet by 2033 (with no buses running on diesel later than this year).

The three zero emission lines of EMT Madrid have carried more than 2.6 million passengers in 2021. Line 001 was launched in February 2020 as a pioneering measure and one of the most emblematic of Spanish capital city public transport lines.

The Madrid City Council announced in late 2021 the end of the use of diesel in the municipal bus fleet. The Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, pledged that all lines of the public company would operate with electric and diesel buses natural gas from January 2023. The fourth e-bus order by EMT was signed in September 2021.

Irizar and Solaris win EMT Madrid electric bus tender

With the next additions in sight, the EMT expects the municipal electric fleet to consist of 190 vehicles by the end of 2022, reaching 329 vehicles by the end of 2023, a forecast that is in line with the objective of advancing in the progressive electrification of the fleet, a goal of the Madrid 360 Environmental Sustainability Strategy. The outlook is for the current average age of the fleet, calculated at 5.1 years, to be reduced to 4.64 years by the end of 2022.

The manufacturers Irizar e-mobility, with a batch of 90 ie bus models, and Solaris, with a second batch of 60 vehicles (Urbino 12 Electric), have been the winners of the EMT’s largest tender for electric buses to date.

Madrid City Council has also applied for funding from Next Generation EU programme for the acquisition of 206 electric buses for an amount of 41.2 million euros, a request that is currently in provisional resolution.

EMT electric bus tender, maximum price of 550,000 euros

EMT Madrid stresses that “The following automatic evaluation criteria have been taken into consideration in the tendering procedure: maximum price of 550,000 euros per unit, the additional guarantee offered by the manufacturers, the range of the vehicles and the cost of energy consumption. In addition, a set of criteria linked to the technical bids have also been considered, such as the availability of resources, compliance with EMT standards, telematic control systems and delivery times, among many others”.

The Strategic Plan that Madrid City Council and EMT have designed until 2025 includes ambitious projects to advance electrification in the near future, such as the transformation of the current facilities of the La Elipa Operations Centre into a reference centre to house a 100% electric fleet. This facility will have a capacity for up to 318 electric buses and will have a large photovoltaic installation that will be a national benchmark for energy efficiency, EMT says.