Arriva orders 150 VDL e-buses to be partly built in Roeselare

Dutch transport company Arriva has ordered 157 new electric buses from VDL. Some buses will be built in the VDL factory in Roeselare, West Flanders.

The 157 new-generation Citea buses are destined for the West Brabant region of the Netherlands. Financial details about the order are unknown, but the extra production will not involve new jobs.

In January, industrial group VDL missed out on a large order from De Lijn, but this time, it is bingo. VDL will start delivering 58 new generation VDL Citea buses type LE-122 and 99 buses type LE-135 in the first half of next year. This is the second-largest order ever placed with VDL for this type of vehicle.

All comfort and technical gadgets

The bus builder has two e-buses production sites, in Roeselare and Valkenswaard. Depending on available capacity, production will be divided between these sites in Flanders and the Netherlands.

The buses will be equipped with both left- and right-hand charging sockets. They will also be equipped with camera monitoring systems with blind spot cameras instead of conventional mirrors, completely emission-free, and have an innovative climate control system.

These include an electrically adjustable, air-conditioned driver’s seat with a memory function. All vehicles also have additional interior lighting and are further characterized by the many luxury seats equipped with extra-thick seats and back cushions, mainly forward-facing seats.

Each bus also has an electric wheelchair ramp, Isofix (a system for attaching child seats), and an Automated External Defibrillator (AED).

The vehicles also feature cruise control, including a speed limiter, tire pressure monitoring system, light and rain sensors, traffic signs and speed recognition, and a reversing camera.

CO2-neutral public transport in Brabant

The buses will be used mainly in the Dutch province of West Brabant, where Arriva has won the new public transport concession from July 2025. The new order means that over 90% of public transport will soon be electric. This fits in with the intention of offering completely CO2-neutral public transport in Brabant by 2027.

Earlier, Arriva and the province of North Brabant ordered 64 new-generation Citea buses for East Brabant. These will soon be used as public transport in the city of Tilburg, among other places.

‘Bus division still loss-making’

Also notable: CEO Willem Van der Leegte said VLD Group’s bus division is still loss-making. “We have the advantage that our bus division accounts for less than 10% of our total turnover,” Van der Leegte told Gazet van Antwerpen newspaper. “Thanks to our other activities, we can absorb the losses from the buses, but I expect our bus division to be profitable by 2026.”

VDL Group also recently took over bankrupt bus builder Van Hool in Koningshooikt, near Lier. Meanwhile, 240 former Van Hool employees are working there on permanent contracts.

VDL does not plan to build entire buses there, partly because labor costs in Belgium per bus are 65,000 to 130,000 higher than in Macedonia, where it also has a factory. According to Van der Leegte, it would also be possible that the factory in Koningshooikt, once modernized, could be used for modular housing, for example.