Porto will receive metrobuses only after completion of work on the first section.

The Porto Metrobus vehicles will only arrive towards the end of the year, after completion of work on the first section, which will require adaptation upon launch, the president of Metro do Porto told reporters.

“We will receive more vehicles only by the end of the year. We will find an alternative to managing the canal,” Thiago Braga told reporters in Nantes, France, flanked by the president of the Sociedade de Transportes Coletivos do Porto (STCP). ), Cristina Pimentel and Joana Barros, architect responsible for the Metrobus project.

The President of Metro do Porto spoke as part of the visit of the Metro, STCP and Porto City Council teams to Nantes, the French city that was a pioneer in the introduction of the “Metrobus”, a service that in Porto will run on a dedicated road on Avenida da Boavista and coexist with cars on Mareshal Gomes da Costa street.

Unlike what is happening in Nantes, in Porto the metrobus stations will be located in the center of the road, meaning that the buses that will operate this service will have doors on the left side, unlike what happens on regular buses .

When asked about the need to use regular buses with doors on the right initially (in June/July, on the opening day of the Casa da Música – Império service), Thiago Braga explained that “it is possible to travel inside the metrobus channel to guarantee access to the stations.

Joana Barros explained that the crossings will be carried out “immediately before and after the stations”, that is, until the real “Metrobus” starts working, traditional buses will ply along the “Metrobus” channel, but will cross the roads in the opposite direction. only in the direction of boarding and disembarking passengers.

The service’s ten carriages, aesthetically similar to conventional metro cars, will be built by a consortium that includes CaetanoBus and DST Solar, under a contract awarded for 29.5 million euros.

Asked about projects in other French cities such as Montpellier or Pau that have abandoned the use of hydrogen, Thiago Braga said that the problem in these cases “is not related to efficiency” but rather to costs, stating that “The machines worked very good, were reliable, had no problems with maintenance.”

“They were buying hydrogen, and our system was set up to not buy hydrogen. We committed a very significant portion of what were financial resources and we needed to be completely independent of the hydrogen market. We are going to develop the system. in which we ourselves will produce hydrogen,” explained Thiago Braga.

In practice, solar panels will be installed at the STCP collection stations in Areosa, Francosa and Via Norte, which will produce energy for electrolyzers that, through the electrolysis of water, will produce the hydrogen needed to refuel Metrobuses, with the surplus being able to later refuel other transport vehicles facilities.

According to Metro’s president, the mechanism for producing this green hydrogen will “reduce the cost of operation from an energy standpoint to almost zero.”

“We’ve made a clear bet, we know the risk we’re taking because we’re disruptive, we’re leading almost globally because no operation has ever been done this way,” in a completely renewable “360-degree format.” “model,” emphasizes Thiago Braga.

The new metro line do Porto will connect Casa da Música with Praça do Império (in 12 minutes) and Anémona (in 17 minutes) in 2024 using hydrogen buses, with stations planned for Casa da Música, Guerra Junqueiro, Bessa, Pinheiro Manso, Serralves . , João de Barros and Imperio, in the first service, as well as in the section to Matosinhos Antunes Guimarães, García de Orta, Nevogilde, Castelo do Quejo and Plaza Cidade do Salvador (Anemona).