Lux Express, the largest bus company in the Baltic region, will replace a large part of its bus fleet during the year. Already in July, the new Scania Irizar buses, which are more spacious, lighter and nearly 15% more environmentally friendly than before, will arrive on Estonian roads.

The value of the contract signed with Scania Eesti AS is 11 million euros. As a result of the transaction, the first 10 buses will arrive in Estonia already in July and the next 17 at the beginning of the new year. Thanks to the new buses, Lux Express can add more departures to its summer routes, the aim of which is to give people more opportunities to spend a summer day without a car in various resort towns in Estonia.

With the new deal, Lux Express' previous continuous work to renew its bus fleet, which was interrupted by the corona crisis that affected the whole world in the last couple of years, continues. On June 5, the Lux Express team personally traveled to the Irizar factory in Spain to check the final finishing of the buses one more time and send them on their way to Estonia.

Ingmar Roos, the Estonian business manager of Lux Express, who is in Spain, said that the choice in favor of the new Scania Irizar i6S Efficient buses was made because these buses are today's top level of European long-distance buses. "Thanks to modern technology, they have been made maximally efficient for operators and comfortable for passengers to travel long distances, and in terms of environmental sustainability, they are the absolute market leaders," said Roos. "The new buses are 950 kilos, or almost one ton, lighter, and their air resistance percentage is 30% lower. Thanks to this, their emissions and fuel consumption are 13% lower than the newest buses in Lux Express' current fleet."

One of the keys to the economy of the buses is the changed aerodynamics, which for the passenger is expressed in the futuristic appearance of the buses. Part of the vehicle's front end and roof, as well as the curves of the windshield and other front windows, have been reworked to reduce air resistance as much as possible. In addition, the Irizar i6S Efficient no longer has air resistance rearview mirrors, which have been replaced by digital cameras that, among other things, improve the driver's direct and indirect field of vision.

"Thanks to the new buses, the carbon footprint required to travel one passenger kilometer will also decrease by 13%. In this regard, Lux Express is already the service provider with the best indicators in the passenger transport sector today, and our future plans are even greener," said Roos.

Last June, Lux Express started cooperation with the new Estonian start-up Grenpay, whose unique algorithm helps, among other things, to calculate the CO2 footprint of different modes of transport per passenger kilometer. For example, when buying a bus ticket on the Lux Express website, every passenger can find out how big their footprint is when traveling from one city to another. Last summer, a calculation revealed that, for example, when traveling a 100-kilometer journey on a Lux Express bus, the carbon footprint of one passenger is 22 grams per passenger kilometer, or 2.2 kilograms over the entire distance. However, according to new calculations made this spring, the carbon footprint of buses is even smaller due to the increase in the number of passengers - 21 grams per passenger kilometer, or 2.1 kilograms per 100 kilometer bus ride. Therefore, traveling by bus is still 1.5 times more environmentally friendly than traveling the same distance with a diesel train, and more than 6 times more economical than traveling the same route by car alone.

"In the coming years, we plan to introduce the first buses that run on alternative fuels in scheduled transport. We have focused our eyes primarily on hydrogen buses, for which we can expect effective innovative solutions from bus manufacturers in the perspective of a couple of years," said Roos.