Barcelona to put out tender for BEV & FCEV buses

In Spain, the public transport provider Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) will soon put out tenders for procuring 36 new hydrogen and 23 battery buses. TMB wants to increase locally emission-free buses in its fleet to 25 per cent by 2024.

For the upcoming tenders, TMB says it has secured around 21 million euros from the EU’s Next Generation funding pot after the Spanish Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MITMA) approved the sum. TMB said it had submitted the applications via the city councils of Barcelona, Hospitalet and El Prat for funding to procure the 36 new hydrogen and 23 battery buses.

When the tenders for the vehicles will begin and exactly which models are to be purchased is not clear from the announcement about the current funding approval. So far, the operator has been using battery buses from Solaris and BYD, among others. In the case of hydrogen buses, the Catalan operator also has vehicles from the Portuguese manufacturer CaetanoBus in their fleet.

In 2021, TMB received around 40 million euros in funding for acquiring 105 electric buses. Currently, TMB’s electric bus fleet comprises 97 vehicles, with four more scheduled to enter service this Friday. Next year, a total of 232 battery buses and 44 hydrogen buses should be on the road for TMB in the Barcelona metropolitan area.

In the two above-mentioned funding rounds, TMB received 61.73 million euros from the EU. The public transport operator calculates this funding has matched its own investments of 131.24 million euros.

tmb.cat (in Catalan)