KVG Kieler Verkehrsgesellschaft, the public transport operator in the German city Kiel, and Dutch bus manufacturer VDL Bus & Coach have reached an agreement for the delivery of 50 units of the new generation Citea with an option for 10 additional buses. With this order, KVG will exceed 100 units of the VDL Bus & Coach brand in its fleet.
The latest order consists of 30 electric articulated new generation Citea LF-181 buses and 20 electric new generation Citea LF-122 buses. The vehicles will be equipped with battery packs with a capacity of 522 kWh for the LF-181 and 429 kWh for the LF-122. The buses will be equipped with a pantograph for fast charging. Furthermore, the new generation Citea for KVG feature a mirror replacement system with cameras instead of mirrors. Thomas Mau, Head of Operations and Technology at KVG Kiel: "We are pleased to take another step in the transformation of our bus fleet with our partner VDL. Once we have taken delivery of the 50 new city buses, more than half of our fleet will consist of battery-powered electric buses and VDL vehicles." KVG Kieler Verkehrsgesellschaft and VDL Bus & Coach signed the official
contract for the new electric buses in the presence of Kiel’s mayor. From July next year until 2025, 50 new electric buses will be delivered to Kiel. The city of Kiel is a 100 percent shareholder in KVG, Kieler Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH. KVG is a partner in Verkehrsverbund Region Kiel (VRK), which is integrated into the state-wide Schleswig-Holstein(SH) fare system. 38 lines serve 769 bus stops in the city of Kiel every day around the clock and almost 29 million passengers were transported in 2022. This corresponds to more than 11 million bus kilometres on the road in 2022. With more than 782 committed employees - 598 of them are bus drivers - KVG plays an important role as an employer.