Alstom (www.alstom.com) has delivered the very first 100% electric Aptis bus to Strasbourg transport operator Compagnie des Transports Strasbourgeois (CTS).

After this delivery, CTS will train 150 drivers in the operation of the new vehicles.

During this initial training phase, the bus will run on the streets of Strasbourg with the livery that the Aptis fleet will adopt when in ‘high-level’ service on the H line.

Aptis buses are some 12m long and equipped with three doors; they are the first electric buses to join CTS’s fleet of vehicles.

The buses requested by the city of Strasbourg are designed for slow charging overnight at the depot.

Aptis is also designed for ‘occasional recharging’ at the end of each line, using either ground-based charging solutions or pantograph charging.

Aptis was also designed to have an ‘optimised total cost’, thanks to reduced maintenance and operating costs and a longer service life than that of standard buses.

Aptis has also been chosen by RATP and Île-de-France Mobilités, as well as by the areas of Greater Grenoble, Greater La Rochelle, and Greater Toulon, where commercial operations are due to begin this year.

Aptis has also received the Origine France Garantie in January 2019 — a certificate guaranteeing that at least 50% of Aptis’s value is French.

Design, production and testing will be carried out at Aptis Alstom’s Hangenbieten site in Alsace. Six other Alstom sites in France are involved in the design and manufacture of Aptis: Reichshoffen for the flanks, Saint-Ouen for the system integration, Tarbes for the traction, Ornans for the motors and Villeurbanne for the electronic components of the traction chain.

Alstom’s site in Vitrolles is developing one of the charging solutions.