Six Canary Islands’ Councils are to receive 35,982,897 euros from EU funds to finance around twenty projects aimed at the digitalisation and decarbonisation of the land transport sector on the archipelago.
This allocation is part of the EU’s Next Generation Recovery and Resilience Mechanism Funds, which allocate more than 41 million euros to the Canary Islands, of which nearly 36 million euros correspond to the regional councils and the remaining five million euros to the Canary Islands’ Government’s own projects that are already underway. All projects financed with these funds must be completed before April 2025.
With these funds, the Canary Islands’ Government will finance the projects presented by the councils, which will mainly be used to purchase electric vehicles for bus fleets and other public vehicles, to implement more charging points for this type of vehicle, to create new Bus-VAO lanes, to build bus interchanges or to install intelligent bus shelters at bus stops.
In addition, the Canary Islands’ Government has earmarked a further 5,044,000 euros of these European funds, which are already being implemented directly by the Executive, for the digital transformation of public road transport and the creation of the Register of Land Transport Operators.
With these funds, the distribution of which was agreed and closed with the local councils months ago, a decisive boost will be given to the updating of the land transport sector in the Canary Islands, the promotion of low-emission zones, decarbonisation and the digitalisation of the entire public land transport sector in the archipelago.
Most of these actions will be carried out under the so-called Component 1 of the Sustainable, safe and connected mobility shock plan in urban and metropolitan environments, a programme for the implementation of low-emission zones and the transformation of urban and metropolitan transport. The six applicant councils – El Hierro did not apply for a proposal under this programme – have included projects for which the Next Generation Funds will provide the aforementioned 35,982,897 euros, an allocation that some councils will now supplement with their own resources.
35,982,897, which some of the Insular Council of Fuerteventura will use to purchase three electric vehicles and modernise the bus shelters at bus stops (an investment of 160,000); in La Palma, five sustainable vehicles will be purchased, photovoltaic panels and intelligent bus shelters will be installed (1,936,273 euros); in Lanzarote, three sustainable buses will be purchased and a preferential bus stop will be built in Costa Teguise (3,385,287 euros).
In Tenerife, new phases of the bus lane on the TF-5 and a new section of VAO bus lane on the TF-1 will be built, in addition to the installation of recharging points for buses at the Santa Cruz de Tenerife interchange (14,508,546 euros); and in Gran Canaria the funds will be invested in the construction of the island’s Mobility Control Centre, which will be located in the capital’s Tamaraceite district, and in a preferential stop in Santa Brígida (13,164,751 euros).