EMT Madrid avanza en su estrategia de electrificación con nueva carga de autobuses
Borja Carabante, the delegate for urban planning, the environment, and mobility, visited today the facilities of the EMT Madrid Operations Center in Fuencarral to closely verify the advantages of the intelligent charging system that the municipal company has already implemented for 20 more efficient, faster, longer-lasting, and 100% automated buses.
EMT Madrid immersed itself in this innovative project of efficient charging for electric buses (Intelligent Charging), an initiative that emerged in 2020. This project was funded by the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility (4,253,032 euros) within the Municipal Aid Program for the implementation of low-emission and urban transport transformation within the recovery, transformation, and resilience plan.
In addition to the 20 electric charging stations, the project integrates a fire protection system that, through gas and thermographic camera sensors, operates in coordination with the intelligent recharging system.
The intelligent technological system for charging indicators in the transportation sector aims to optimize electric charging and is designed to not require human intervention during the process: from connecting the charger at the start of the driver, avoiding waiting time, and ensuring that the buses are ready and warmed up for departure on time. All processes related to departure schedules and energy consumption of each bus and facility are 100% automated. Similarly, the system is capable of minimizing the power used at the charging center, optimizing electricity usage at different times. Additionally, EMT Madrid plans to manage the photovoltaic energy generated at its facilities using battery containers for storage.
For the implementation of this intelligent system, different brands of electric buses and pantographs were selected during the trial period, all of which have proven to be compatible with the current models of electric buses operating in the fleet. The goal is for this efficient system to be extrapolated to the municipal company’s operational centers in the near future. Similarly, future centers, such as Las Tablas and Ellipa, will integrate the progress of this project into their design.
Decarbonization and Digitalization
The decarbonization of the municipal bus fleet is one of the main objectives set by the local council and EMT Madrid, investing millions for this purpose. The efforts of the council and the municipal company are focused on three objectives: the purchase of zero-emission buses, the adaptation and construction of new sustainable infrastructures in the company’s operational centers, and the use of the latest technologies applied to mobility and clean energy.
The city of Madrid currently has a fleet of 432 electric buses, which will reach 463 units by early this year. By the end of March, EMT Madrid will already have a total of 40 fully electrified lines in its network.
Technological innovation, one of the main axes of the strategic plan for 2025, has become a transversal partner in the municipal company, facilitating decision-making based on data, which improves the efficiency and competitiveness of EMT Madrid. The shift from «refueling» to electric recharging meant a significant transformation of internal processes and service operations. For this, Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) for vehicles, Operational Technologies (OT) managing electricity and information technologies (IT) converge information exchange and data analysis according to criteria.
The merging of these areas of knowledge enables EMT Madrid to tackle the new challenge of transforming the fleet into electric and connected vehicles, governed by the electric recharging process through cloud-based algorithms for ‘Intelligent Charging’. Beyond energy procurement, EMT Madrid evolves into an active role where, based on information, it can make dynamic management decisions that require efficiency based on operational and financial parameters.
