The city of Cracow in Poland has decided to order 50 Solaris Urbino 18 electric buses to help clean up its air and do its part (some of it) to stop global heating, according to CleanTechnica.com.
More specifically, the transit operator Miejskie Przedsiębiorstwo Komunikacyjne S.A. (MPK) placed the order, which will add the new 50 to an existing 28 Solaris electric buses.
The order also included 50 electric bus charging stations, and everything should be delivered by the end of the year. The cost of the order is reportedly 165,435,000 PLN ($41.18 million).
Getting a little technical, “The design of the articulated buses will be adapted to two recharging modes: by means of a 4-pole roof-mounted pantograph placed above the first vehicle axis; or using a plug-in charger. Meanwhile energy will be stored in high density Solaris High Energy+ batteries.
“The electric articulated buses will be able to carry 141 passengers at a time, of whom 43 will be able to travel seated. The latest buses for Cracow will feature a monitoring system, a passenger information system, air-conditioning, USB charging ports and an electric heating system.”
“Cracow has taken the fifth place in the contest ‘Green capital of Europe 2022’. One of the factors taken into consideration in that competition was ecological transport and its meaning for the environment. The new buses will service four bus lines running through the Three Bards’ Avenues (Juliusz Słowacki Avenue, Adam Mickiewicz Avenue, Zygmunt Krasiński Avenue), that is in a region of the city where the air pollution limits are exceeded the most,” stated Cracow mayor Jacek Majchrowski.
I was expecting to write more about electric buses in the coming weeks, after the article I wrote a few days ago, “4% Of European Union Bus Sales = Electric Buses.” The electric bus news kept flowing in so quickly, though, that I got here before the end of the week.
Aside from the big, breaking 50 bus order above, the city of Craiova in Romania ordered 16 of the same Urbino 18 articulated electric buses from Solaris (to be delivered in the first half of next year, 2021). Romania’s Cluj-Napoca previously purchased 41 Urbino 12 electric buses from Solaris.
