- New e-buses will supplement the fleet of vehicles that provides daily school transport services for more than 1,000 students with disabilities
Rome, October 19th, 2022 – Accelerating the electrification of local public transport, with a focus on sustainability and inclusion, and providing an essential service for pupils: these are the guiding principles of the partnership between Enel X – Enel’s innovative business line that operates through XBus, the joint venture with Infracapital – and Arriva Italia, the Italian holding company of the Arriva Group, which has made it possible to supply 20 new electric vehicles offering school transport to students with disabilities. The new e-buses will be added to the Arriva Italia fleet, which – starting on January 10th, 2022 and in partnership with Meditral – will provide transport services for pupils with special educational needs and reduced mobility in the municipality of Rome.
“Starting today, the city of Rome can seize a new opportunity: in collaboration with Arriva, we will be supplying the first electric buses that will allow students with disabilities from various schools in the capital city to get around,” says Francesco Venturini, CEO of Enel X. “This agreement is a prime example of how innovation can be integrated with the social inclusion of people requiring special assistance. We believe that our “bus as a service” solution is a winning strategy that will allow the local public transport fleet to finally become more sustainable, and that this initiative will be the first in a long series of other similar projects to be implemented across the country.”
“We set a goal from the very beginning, when we took over the transport service for students with disabilities in the city of Rome, which was to include these new fully green vehicles,” says Angelo Costa, Managing Director of Arriva Italia. “In fact, sustainability was one of our primary concerns, along with improving efficiency and optimizing the service. These first months of activity went very well, and we want to continue to guarantee excellence and improve the service as much as possible, also by making greener choices.”
"Just one year ago we had public transportation for students with disabilities in our schools that did not work, due to the disruptions linked to one of the carriers. Today we are here to tell another story: an efficient service, which transforms and innovates,” declares Claudia Pratelli, Councilor to School, Training and Work of Roma Capitale. “We are very happy that it is a service like this that combines the right to education and the right to inclusion that is the start of a fundamental change for Rome. A step towards responding to the demand for change that comes from younger generations, who in these days are denouncing the climate emergency and asking for concrete action from adults and those who govern.”
This project is one of the first examples in Italy of the ‘Bus as a service’ model, an innovative solution developed by Enel X through the XBus joint venture to electrify urban public transport, which offers energy according to mileage. Customers purchase the electric kilometers they need to cover their routes, which ensures that the service is provided efficiently and sustainably. Enel X offers Arriva the full package, which includes 20 electric buses, the installation of a medium/low voltage cabin, maintenance, and energy supply from renewable sources. Enel X Way, a company owned by Enel specializing in electric mobility, has also recently installed 10 e-bus charging stations along with the JuiceNet Manager dashboard for optimizing night-time charging.
Each vehicle is fitted with specific advanced equipment for transporting physically disabled passengers, including an automatic hydraulic lift for wheelchairs. They are also equipped with an AED defibrillator and an innovative telemedicine system: if a passenger were to suddenly feel unwell, an on-the-spot diagnosis can be made by communicating the vital signs to a head office manned by specialized doctors who can assess how serious the situation is in real time. In order to ensure utmost safety for passengers, all vehicles also have a video surveillance system installed inside.
The service involves picking students up from home, helping them get on the bus and taking them to school. At the departure/arrival terminus, a care giver appointed by the Municipality of Rome will be waiting for them at a designated meeting point. The municipality itself certifies that the service is provided efficiently through a geolocation system that is specially installed on all vehicles. Arriva Italia’s fleet for transporting students with disabilities in Rome currently includes 246 drivers operating 228 routes with approximately 1,000 passengers per day.
Enel X Global Retail is the Enel Group’s global business line active in the areas of energy supply and efficiency. As a global leader in the development of innovative solutions to support the energy transition, Enel X Global Retail provides consumers, businesses and cities with a modular and integrated offer built around customer needs, promoting electrification and digitalization as drivers for creating new value. Enel X Global Retail manages demand response services, with 7.9 GW in total capacity, has installed more than 2.8 million lights for public lighting around the world, and offers energy services to 63 million residential customers every day as a Commodity. Enel X Global Retail’s ecosystem of solutions includes assets for the optimization and self-production of energy, premium solutions for energy efficiency, and competitive and flexible energy offers, with the end goal of helping customers develop their own energy roadmaps.
Enel X Way is the Enel Group's new company dedicated to electric mobility. Currently, Enel X Way operates in 16 countries and manages over 380,000 charging points, both directly and through roaming agreements in place around the world. As a global platform for e-Mobility, the company is focused on developing flexible charging technologies and solutions to improve the customer experience and to enable the electrification of transport for consumers, businesses, cities and public administrations.
ARRIVA Italia
With a total of 40,000 employees, the Arriva Group transports 1.2 billion passengers every year in 13 countries, generating annual revenues of more than 4 billion euros. It offers modal solutions by road and rail, consisting mainly of mobility services. Today, Arriva Italia is a leading road transport operator in the Local Public Transport sector, with about 100 million kilometers travelled per year. It generates a revenue of 360 million euros, with 3,500 people employed and a fleet of more than 2,500 buses (holding company figures, including subsidiaries). Arriva Italia operates its services directly in Lombardy, Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta. As the main holding company, it also operates through subsidiaries in the Veneto and Friuli Venezia-Giulia regions and in the city of Como.