The president of TITSA, Enrique Arriaga, announced yesterday that the company has leased 20 buses to add to their fleet to meet the demand and increase in passenger figures in Tenerife since free travel for frequent users started on January 1st of this year.
He explained that "18 new vehicles are already here in Tenerife and the remaining two will arrive soon from Seville. Once they have been re-registered, painted green, and had our systems installed, they will all go straight into
Arriaga added that "acquiring a new through the usual means of buying it, complying with the official administrative deadlines for public procurement, plus the manufacturing and delivery period, can take up to two years, so for this reason the TITSA Board of Directors agreed to a budget of 4 million euros to lease them for a period of three years so we could add them to the fleet more quickly”.
Given the imminent arrival of carnival and the need to reinforce their service, TITSA have put eight of the new buses into operation straight away to try and alleviate the inconveniences experienced by passengers. These will be replaced by green ones when they are ready and will then be TITSA’d up.
Arriaga assured that, "the purpose of these vehicles is to mainly cover long-distance lines with few stops, such as 10, 110 and 112, which take routes between Santa Cruz and the South Airport, Los Cristianos, Costa Adeje".
During the month of January, the number of passengers on public transport increased by 40% compared to the previous year, reaching figures that had never been seen before, which is why they are adapting to the new demand.
The new batch of buses is made up of sixteen 15-metre vehicles and four 13-metre vehicles. All of them comply with Euro6 environmental regulations, the most restrictive for these types of engines, and are equipped for longer distances, with more widely spaced reclining seats with comfortable upholstery, and footrests.
These buses are added to another 30 that will arrive in March to complete the batch of 60 vehicles that the Island Corporation bought last year and that have been arriving in stages since December.
