The Metropolitan Transport of Barcelona (TMB) has ordered a total of 105 MAN Lion’s City buses from MAN Truck & Bus. “This means TMB’s most recent public call for tender ended with great success for us, and we are incredibly happy to have been awarded the entire contract,” said Rudi Kuchta, Head of Product & Sales Bus and Speaker Business Area Bus at MAN Truck & Bus. MAN will deliver the vehicles to the Spanish transport operators by the end of the year. This includes 49 natural gas buses of the MAN Lion’s City type (A21), each with a length of 12 metres, and 26 articulated buses (A23), each 18 metres in length, likewise powered with natural gas. Additionally, a further 30 12-metre-long hybrid buses will be delivered – the first vehicles from the new Lion’s City generation of city buses featuring MAN EfficientHybrid to be driven in Spain. Thanks to a bid that was impressive in all areas, MAN Truck & Bus was able to win all three lots.
Once the 105 modern city buses have been delivered, over 50 percent of the TMB fleet, which is currently around 1,140 buses strong, will be MAN vehicles. “We are very happy; after all, this development confirms that we are on the right track. The renewed order strengthens our excellent relationship with TMB, who are one of our European reference customers,” said Manuel Fraile, the head of the bus division at MAN Truck & Bus Iberia. He adds: “The fact that the transport operators are already using natural-gas-powered MAN buses demonstrates how satisfied the company is with this vehicle type, and that it has proven itself in the past few years. On the other hand, this order also represents a début for our new hybrid generation – the transport operators are some of the first customers to whom we will be delivering the Lion’s City with MAN EfficientHybrid.” Approximately 350 hybrid buses are already in the TMB fleet. Additional hybrids as well as resource-sparing scheduled-service buses with natural gas drive are to join the fleet in the future.
In addition to topics such as efficiency, safety and environmental friendliness, the deciding factor for the Metropolitan Transport of Barcelona was also the services that MAN Truck & Bus offers. “We have made substantial investments in the past few years in order to be able to provide TMB and the metropolitan region of Barcelona an excellent level of service. Among other things, we have hired personnel who specialise in buses, and expanded our two official local branches in El Prat and in Parets del Vallès. This most recent success shows that we are on the right path; we are very happy to work together with a state-of-the-art company such as TMB in the future,” summarised Manuel Fraile.
SOURCE: MAN Bus
