Metro de Málaga receives the fourth and last of the trains of the expansion of its fleet

2023-04-26 00:00:00

Metro de Málaga receives the fourth and last of the trains of the expansion of its fleet

Metro de Málaga, has received the fourth and last unit of the expansion of the train fleet acquired to cover the current phase of operation, which, from March 27, extends to the historic center with the new stations of Guadalmedina and Shipyards.

(25/04/2023)

The commissioning of the new units, scheduled according to the schedule for the month of September, will mean reducing the intervals between trains at rush hour from the current seven minutes to just under five minutes and twenty seconds.

The resulting fleet with these additions will provide greater regularity of train passage and transport capacity in the rush hour time slot on weekdays (from 7:45 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. and from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.), but will also help to reinforce the service in a timely manner on days with special events in the city, thanks to the CBTC railway signaling system, which allows a minimum approach between trains.

The new units have been contracted to CAF, the company awarded the rolling stock supply contract for lines 1 and 2 of the Málaga Metro. They belong to the Urbos 100 series and constitute an evolution of the current series, Urbos 3, with which the current fleet of metro trains was formed, which began its commercial operation with fourteen units, and which with this expansion increases it to eighteen vehicles. .

Same corporate identity

The new Urbos 100 units for the Malaga underground maintain the same corporate identity as the current fleet, but with numerous innovations and technical improvements incorporated into this new version of the rolling stock model. For transport capacity purposes, the new units are identical to the current ones, that is, for a passage of more than two hundred passengers, between standing and seated passengers.

The rolling stock, which was specially designed for Metro de Málaga, consists of articulated, bidirectional units with two driver’s cabs. It was conceived with the latest existing technologies, responding to the one hundred percent low floor concept to allow easy access, both for people with reduced mobility and for the elderly and baby carriages.

Before the new trains are incorporated into commercial operation, the units are subjected to a series of tests and verifications that guarantee their optimal operation. In the factory where they have been manufactured, the CAF plant in Zaragoza, type and serial tests have been carried out in order to validate their correct manufacture and operation. Subsequently, at the Málaga Metro facilities, they are subjected to track-type and track-series tests. The former, which are the most extensive, are subject to a high number of protocols and are usually centralized in a single unit, while the latter are carried out on all units acquired.

Finally, it is necessary to carry out a battery of tests on the new version of Alstom’s CBTC, so that it can recognize the new train units. Prior to their entry into operation, the new trains will be subject to supervision and authorization for commissioning by the Public Works Agency of the Junta de Andalucía.