RATP has recalled 149 BlueBus electric buses that used to be in operation in Paris. The decision is due to safety reasons, following the recently-occurred fires of two vehicles. Indeed, it comes after an electric bus on line 71 caught fire today in the 13th arrondissement, without causing any injuries. In early April another vehicles of the same model burned on boulevard Saint-Germain, near the Maubert-Mutualité stop, in the 5th arrondissement

As a reminder, RATP points out that “it has been operating electric buses since 2016 without any major incident”.

RATP withdraws Bollorè electric buses

As this is the second fire on a electric bus in the same Bolloré Bluebus 5SE series in less than a month, RATP has decided, as a precautionary measure, in conjunction with Ile-de-France Mobilités, to temporarily withdraw the 149 electric buses in this series from operations” RATP said in a statement.

Potrebbe interessarti

The public transport operator adds: “RATP has asked the manufacturer Bolloré for a full assessment to explain the causes of these incidents and to propose an action plan to enable these buses to be put back to service in complete safety. The temporary withdrawal of these buses could lead to disruptions on some bus routes during the day. To limit these disruptions, buses will be redistributed between the various bus centres”.

In late September 2021 a large fire event in Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen (SBB)’s depot, in Gaisberg, destroyed 25 buses. A first assessment by the police, reported on many German media, said that the fire could have been caused by an electric bus during charging procedure.

Highlights

Related articles

What we are seeing at European Mobility Expo in Strasbourg

European Mobility Expo is running from Tuesday 1st October until 3 October in Strasbourg, exceptionally in the city that hosts the seat of the European Parliament and not in Paris, due to logistics issues related with the Olympic year. Within the expo, bus OEMs are well represented (among others: Iv...