The small town of Irún with a population of 61,000 is located in the north-east of the Spanish Basque Country, close to the French border. Rail services are provided by the state-owned RENFE and by the heavily used, meter-gauge regional line of the Basque regional railway Euskotren. The Euskotren service runs from San Sebastian to Hendaye in France and will become a part of the newly created Donosti Metro system (San Sebastian). Until 1953, a metre-gauge tram line connected the city with its nearby beach resort Fuenterrabia/Hondarribia.
Four lines of the “IRUNBUS” provide urban transport in Irún today – all operated by the company Autobuses Urbanos Irún Fuenterrabia, S.L.
As a flagship project, a political decision was made to electrify trunk bus route no. 1, which runs every 15 minutes on weekdays and carried around 1.7 million passengers in 2019. Vectia, the subsidiary of railway manufacturer CAF for the production of electric buses based in the Navarra region, supplied four electric buses of its 12-metre model “Veris.12”. They started service on line 1 on 28 February 2019. The vehicles are equipped for fast recharging at both termini at designated charging poles with inverted pantographs, which gives the ebuses sufficient electricity for up to 15 km of autonomous driving. Their charging time is just 3 minutes. Furrer+Frey supplied the infrastructure under its brand “All-In-One Charging station“.
Three of the four ebuses are needed for daily service. They can accommodate up to 95 passengers and have been very successful. The manufacturer Vectia meanwhile joined the Solaris Bus & Coach company, which was acquired by CAF (see also: https://www.urban-transport-magazine.com/en/vectia-becomes-solaris/ ).
The other three lines (+ 2 night lines) are currently operated by diesel buses from various manufacturers, but the contract for the delivery of four electric buses of the “ie tram” model was recently awarded to the Basque manufacturer Irizar e-mobility. Three of the vehicles will be equipped for fast charging during the day, and the fourth for overnight charging in the depot only. They will be delivered in 2023 and will be used on Irunbus line 2 (Ventas – Centro). This means that in future 90% of urban transport services will be operated in electric mode.
(Gallery – click to open)
15.11.2022
