The Romanian city of Galați opts for 20 hybrid Solaris buses

Solaris will deliver 20 novel hybrid buses to the Romanian city of Galați. Low-emission Solaris Urbino 12 hybrid buses will become part of the municipal public transport system in mid-2021.

The authorities of the city of Galați have selected a company to supply 20 state-of-the-art hybrid buses in a tender procedure. Signed in mid-September, the contract stipulates the delivery of the first two vehicles at the end of February and the remaining 18 vehicles in summer 2021.

Solaris’s twelve-metre buses for Galați will be fitted with a serial hybrid drive consisting of a 120 kW electric motor and a 150 kW diesel engine. They will also feature supercapacitors that make it possible to store and then use recovered energy. The buses will be equipped with a Stop & Go feature that controls the diesel engine: it turns off the engine when the bus halts at bus stops, and it turns it on again once the vehicle sets off. This allows for a considerable reduction in exhaust emissions and fuel consumption compared to vehicles with a conventional drive.

Passenger’s comfort while travelling on public transport in Galați will be enhanced by modern air-conditioning, CCTV and an advanced passenger information system. As the vehicles will be furnished with a passenger counting system, the operator will be able to gather data on the number of people using particular routes.

This delivery of hybrid vehicles is not the first one to be carried out by Solaris for Galați. A total of 17 zero-emission Trollino 12s were delivered in 2017 and 2018 to that place. Solaris and operators from Romania have been partnering since as far back as 2002. Since then, Solaris has supplied over 300 buses and trolleybuses to Romanian cities, including over 40 zero-emission buses with electric drives to the city of Cluj-Napoca.