ALSA and the Inter-municipal Cooperation Establishment (ECI) will share the cost of the acquisition between them.
Rabat – Spanish bus services company ALSA City Bus announced on Tuesday, January 14, plans to deploy 700 new buses in Casablanca from January 2021. The new buses will transport nearly 350 million passengers for a period of 10 years.
“On the security side, all measures will be taken for the comfort and secure travel of citizens,” said the company in a statement.
The company plans to put its Driving Out Harm program into practice in Casablanca. The program encourages staff to ensure the security of their workplace by putting the safety of passengers first, be fit for work (no alcohol or drugs and fully rested), monitoring the buses and only driving them after mechanical checks, and driving carefully.
ALSA has also equipped its entire fleet with a tracking system for speed control to ensure the continued professionalism of the drivers and the safety of the passengers.
On October 2019, the company signed a delegated management contract with the Inter-municipal Cooperation Establishment (ECI) to operate in Casablanca’s 18 municipalities.
The contract has two phases AND covers a period of 10 years, with the possibility to be extended by an additional 5 years.
During the first phase, called initialization, running from November 1, 2019, to December 31, 2020, Alsa will operate 250 buses “in a greatly deteriorated condition” taken over from M’dina Bus, whose contract expired on October 31.
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The company will then gradually introduce 400 used buses.
In January 2021,the start of the second phase, ALSA will deploy a permanent fleet of 700 new buses.
The ECI and Alsa will equally share the cost of the acquisition.
ALSA Maroc, a subsidiary of British parent company National Express, has been present in the country for 20 years, operating in Marrakech, Agadir, Tangier, Khouribga, and Rabat-Sale-Temara.