The City Council of Marbella has incorporated five new urban buses of the latest generation to public transport, which now has 26 vehicles, being the largest fleet in the history of the city in a clear commitment to sustainability, as announced on Thursday by the mayor, Ángeles Muñoz.
The councilor highlighted during the presentation that these vehicles “are safe, innovative, accessible and respectful with the environment” and will allow savings in polluting emissions of more than 241.8 tons of CO2 per year.
In this sense, the first mayor has underlined the City Council’s commitment “for the improvement in the field of sustainability and the promotion of free travel for those registered in the municipality, which benefits 80 percent of travellers”.
Muñoz recalled that “in recent years we have taken the contest to improve public transportone of our priorities, and we have also achieved the complete union of the entire coastline, with a notable investment effort of more than 6.5 million euros for the Transport area”.
“We understood that we had to promote gratuity among registered citizens with a mobility card that is increasing every year”, indicated Muñoz, who has detailed that in 2021 more than 12,966 new registrations were processed and today there are more than 68,724 active titles.
On the other hand, he pointed out that the average rating of the service by users of urban public transport is 8.14 out of 10 and has highlighted that Grupo Avanza, provider of the same, “has made a great effort, work that has led it to achieve seven quality certificates”.
In this regard, Rafael Durban, director of the southern division of Avanza, explained that “we have grown to get all 26 buses that new ones have been installed in Marbella, which has been an important step in this commitment to mobility and something very positive for the quality of life of citizens”.
“This city has been benchmark on the Costa del Sol in terms of public transport in many aspects, it even dared to take the step towards being free”, he assessed, while highlighting the advances in digitization and adding that the acquisition of the new urban buses had an investment of 1, 5 million euros.
For his part, Javier Pacho, sales representative of Mercedes-Benz, specified the new state-of-the-art vehicles that “improve up to 98 percent the latest required limits by the European Union regarding emissions, while the reduction in particles is 85%”. It has also highlighted its accessibility for people with reduced mobility and a special ventilation system for Covid-19 with active antiviral filters and systems that will allow a high rate of air exchange, with a complete renewal rate of the air inside the bus 104 times. at the time