Metro De Málaga Takes Delivery Of New Urboses

In June 2021 Metro de Málaga awarded CAF a contract for four more five-car Urbos 3 (part of the Urbos 100 family) articulated, 100% low floor trams in anticipation of the future completion of the future extension of the two-line network. The contract value of these four vehicles has not been released to the media.

This is Line 2 northwards from Guadalmedina to the new Hospital Civil in Málaga. The constructive project for this section has been completed, and tenders for the work are soon to be invited. This stretch of line will be completely underground, 1.8 km long, with three stations, in the Bailén-Miraflores district, which has a residential population of around 60,000. Completion of this line, estimated to cost around 900 million EUR, is now scheduled for 2027.

Test running on the 1 km of Line 1 between Guadalmedina and Atarazanas (in the old city centre) began in early April 2022, and by the late autumn only safety tests of the infrastructure remained outstanding before the line could be inaugurated, though formal 'inaugurations' of both the above stations took place earlier in the year. Inauguration of the line is not now expected until sometime in early 2023 - no date has yet been fixed.

The first of the new trams departed from CAF's factory in Zaragoza, by low-loader, during the morning of 29 November 2022, and was scheduled to reach its new home, Los Asperones depot, either late that day or on the 30th. The remaining three Urboses are scheduled to make the same journey by early 2023, bringing fleet strength up to 18 trams - the first 14 date from when the metro was inaugurated in July 2014, and are identical in characteristics and specifications to the newcomers.

Type testing has already taken place in Zaragoza, but the new vehicles will also be subjected to a series of dynamic tests for verification purposes in Málaga, before they are put in service.