Vanti announced that it will invest an additional US$ 7 million in the construction of three new service stations to supply the 556 new natural gas buses that will become part of the Integrated Mass Transportation System of Bogotá, SITP. This happened after the tender that renews the bus fleet in several areas of the city was awarded in December 2019; in this process natural gas played a leading role thanks to its quality, competitiveness and low environmental impact.
These three new stations, which will be complementary to the six that will supply phase I and II of the Transmilenio and that were delivered before the deadline established in the contracts, will have better compression systems. This will allow refueling to be carried out in record time, which ranges between 8 and 10 minutes per bus, thanks to the rapid filling technology for mass transit systems manufactured and assembled in Canada.
The company said that, according to the daily number of buses to serve, fleets of 50 to 300 vehicles can be supplied in the different locations distributed throughout the city, guaranteeing bus trips of about 250 kilometers per day.
“The highly satisfactory experience in operation, competitiveness and environmental impact of the new fleet of natural gas buses of phases I and II of Transmilenio and the new award of 556 SITP buses also equipped with this technology, consolidate natural gas as the best option for the renewal of public transport fleet in the city and in the country, especially for its great benefits for air quality, and without any cost overruns,” said Rodolfo Anaya, President of Vanti.
According to the most recent study of the University of the Andes, a 50% reduction of particulate material was achieved with the operation of only 351 Euro VI natural gas buses, of the 741 awarded with this technology in the renewed fleet of Transmilenio. This achievement and its consequent direct benefits in the health of the users and in the city in general were ratified a few days ago by Bogotá City Hall.
“The environmental results verified by the University of the Andes, in which the biggest contributor in the reduction of polluting material were natural gas buses, show that, even without having deployed the entire new NGV fleet of Transmilenio, the environmental impact is already highly positive. This confirms that natural gas is the path that the city must follow to improve air quality without incurring cost overruns for Bogotá. The remaining 390 natural gas buses for the trunk routes will enter during the first half of 2020,” Anaya added.
