Futuristic vehicle in regular service
(ffm) The city of Frankfurt is on its way to electric mobility. The majority of local transport services - around 80 percent of passenger journeys - have already been provided electrically by suburban trains, underground trains and trams for decades. Since December 2018, the first five battery-electric buses from the manufacturer Solaris have been in operation. Frankfurt can boast of being the first Hessian city to have "electrified" an entire bus line.
"We will be testing more buses with alternative drives in the future in order to gain experience for upcoming procurements," explains traffiQ managing director Tom Reinhold. "A particularly futuristic vehicle is now being used by the municipal In-der-City-Bus GmbH (ICB) for two weeks: a so-called ‚ietram' from the Spanish manufacturer Irizar," says ICB managing director Alois Rautschka. The demo bus will be offered to several transport companies for testing after the e-bus conference in Berlin. For Frankfurt, the 18-meter-long "Tram" version would probably be out of the question, but Irizar also has 12-meter-long standard electric buses in its program.
In the coming week, trial operation is scheduled in Frankfurt on the following lines:
- Monday and Tuesday, April 15 and 16, 9.25 a.m. to 12.24 p.m.: Bus line 75 (Bockenheimer Warte - Uni-Campus Westend - Bockenheimer Warte)
- Wednesday and Thursday, 17. and 18 April, 6.23 to 8.58 a.m.: Bus line 30 (Bad Vilbel train station - Sachsenhausen Hainer Weg)
