Public operator in Spain runs Scania buses on public waste

5 DECEMBER 2022

Public bus operator, Moventis TCC Pamplona, Spain, has acquired thirteen brand new gas buses from Scania – to run on biomethane only.

As part of the Moventia group, the company carries out urban transport in Pamplona and 17 municipal districts in the northern Spanish region of Navarra.

“This deal is a truly holistic initiative, to utilise local waste as a resource for sustainable transport,” says Pedro Cotera, Business Manager City Buses at Scania. “Spain is a country with a strong agricultural and food production industry, and this is a step towards energy independence.”

Decarbonising public traffic

This purchase is a first step on Mancomunidad Comarca de Pamplona’s (MCP) road to decarbonising urban traffic, in which all public service vehicles will soon follow suit, either through electrification or by utilising locally sourced biomethane. As the biogas infrastructure has been put in place, an expansion of the electric grid has simultaneously been done in the area. Preparations are now ongoing with the creation of new charging points for new e-vehicles planned for the near future.

Filling around the corner

At the public announcement of the fleet renewal, the operator also revealed a new gas supply installation beside the garages. It will allow the new biogas-powered buses to be fuelled on site. Filling will take around four minutes, giving each bus an autonomy of about 300 km.

Ambitious environmental targets

The responsible public transportation authorities, MCP, set an ambitious target to improve the overall urban environment. This includes abandoning fossil fuels in the public vehicle fleet by 2030. The new buses are the first in Spain to meet the Euro 6E emissions standard for compressed gas vehicles (CNG). They will be powered by biomethane, extracted from landfill waste in a new processing centre. In the future sewage will also be used as an energy source.

Biogas vehicles achieve a reduction of up to 90 percent in offset of CO2 emissions, a 70 percent reduction in NOx and a 90 percent reduction in particulate matter, compared with their fossil diesel equivalents. In addition, they are 50 percent less noisy, which improves driver and passenger comfort.