Starting in December 2026, Arriva Netherlands will provide bus transport in the East Brabant region of the Netherlands for the next 12.5 years. Arriva announced that it will deploy fully electric Yutong and Irizar buses for this purpose. Although part of the current bus fleet will remain in use, with the purchase of the 128 electric Yutong and 39 electric Irizar buses Arriva meets all the requirements set by the responsible transport authority Province of North Brabant in its Program of Requirements for this sustainable concession.
According to Jan Pieter Been, regional director at Arriva,
the Irizar buses will certainly change the streets in the cities of Tilburg and Den Bosch thanks to their futuristic tram-bus design. "With these buses, we will provide high-frequency urban transport. In Tilburg, we will deploy 18-meter-long articulated buses, and in Den Bosch, with its many narrow streets in the historic city center, we will deploy 12-meter-long buses." Forty-four 13- and 15-meter buses are being ordered from the Chinese company Yutong for the
"Bravodirect lines," which handle heavy transport flows. Forty low-entry 12-meter Yutong buses are being purchased for regional transport. Together with the 83 existing electric VDL and Volvo buses from the current concession, this completes the bus fleet, which will become fully electric. In addition to this fleet, 32 new 6-meter Mercedes-Benz Sprinters are also being purchased for local bus service in East Brabant.