Hybrid and hydrogen-powered buses set to significantly reduce atmospheric pollution in Sardinia and Aschaffenburg.
Multinational transportation solutions company, the CAF Group, has secured two new bus supply contracts for Aschaffenburg (Germany) and Sardinia (Italy) for hydrogen and hybrid vehicles respectively, with a combined value of over €40m.
The German operator Stadtwerke Aschaffenburg Verkehrs has selected CAF Group company Solaris to supply 12 hydrogen buses, which will run in the German city of Aschaffenburg in the north of Bavaria from 2024. This is the first order Solaris has received for 18-metre-long articulated hydrogen buses, a model which the company introduced last autumn.
Hydrogen buses play a key role in the CAF Group’s zero-emission transport offering and have become a particularly interesting proposition for cities seeking to develop more sustainable public transport systems. To date, Solaris has secured contracts for this type of unit for more than 200 vehicles for different cities in countries such as Italy, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands, having established itself as Europe’s leading company in this sector by 2022.
Solaris has also entered into an agreement to supply 100 Urbino 12 hybrid buses to the Italian city of Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia. The contract forms part of a framework agreement entered into in 2021 with the public limited company Consip, owned by the Italian Department of Economy and Finance.
Under the agreement local public transport companies are able to directly award the supply of vehicles or can hold a restricted tender with those suppliers selected in the agreement. In this case, Sardinia’s largest public transport company, ARST, placed an order with Solaris for 100 hybrid buses to be delivered in 2024.
The selected model, the Urbino 12 hybrid, will be fitted with state-of-the-art passenger comfort solutions and a new-generation hybrid power pack consisting of a 250 kW electric traction motor and a 150 kW Euro 6 internal combustion engine, which will result in a significant reduction in fuel consumption and in atmospheric pollution.
Significantly, more than 1,500 Solaris vehicles are currently running on Italian roads, almost a third of which are zero-emission electric vehicles. The latest contract wins cements Solaris’s position as one of the leading European companies in the sale and manufacture of low- and zero-emission buses, with Italy having established itself as one of the key markets as regards the transition towards green transport.
