Städtischer Verkehrsbetrieb Esslingen am Neckar (SVE) – the city’s municipal public transport company, published a tender for 46 battery trolleybuses with an option for 10 additional vehicles on 11 June 2021. These 46 vehicles are divided into 10 two-door 12-metre buses with a maximum length of 12.5 m in length and 36 three-door articulated buses with a maximum length of 18.5 m. The option covers 3 additional 12-metre buses and 7 articulated buses. The articulated buses are to be powered on the 2nd and 3rd axles and will be equipped with an LTO traction battery that must have a battery capacity of at least 75 kWh.
The procurement is being made through a funding program that has not yet been released, but is expected to be finalized shortly. Participants in the tender can apply until the end of July 2021, on 1 September 2021 the selected bidders will be invited to submit a bid, provided that grant approval for the funding has been received. The binding period for the bids is six months, so the contract is expected to be awarded at the beginning of 2022. Delivery of the first vehicle must take place within 18 months, and commissioning of the first vehicle no later than 21 months after the contract is awarded. The option can be exercised up to 5½ years after signing of the contracts.
Already in July 2020, the Esslingen City Council had decided to completely convert all of Esslingen’s bus routes to electric operation by 2024. Three years earlier, it had already been decided that the SVE should operated completely emission-free in ten years; by 2024, an increase from 21 to 63 percent electric mobility on the bus routes was planned. This has now been corrected to 100 percent by 2024. Currently, 10 battery-powered articulated trolleybuses of two different types are already operating in Esslingen on the three lines 101, 113 and 118.
Additional information on the ‘trolley:motion’ webpage:
https://www.trolleymotion.eu/trolleystaedte/stadt/?id=75
