With the presence of the Undersecretary of Mining, Suina Chahuán, and its executive president, Rubén Alvarado, Codelco launched the “Electromobility for El Salvador” program, with which the division of the Atacama Region converted 100% of its fleet to electric buses.
The new transport units were manufactured by the Chinese company Yutong and have wide spaces between seats, belts with alarms, three TV screens and several internal cameras, which allow better visualization for the drivers.
Suina Chahuán, Undersecretary of Mining, pointed out that “this allows us to advance in a more sustainable mining future with higher quality for the transfer of workers. In addition, it is an important step towards meeting Codelco’s carbon neutrality goals, for which we congratulate the company.”
The program also included the inauguration of smart bus stops, located in various parts of the city, which were built – both their structure and their seats – with recycled materials and are supplied with solar energy. They are equipped with security cameras and have two information screens that broadcast news from the camp and live information on the bus route.
Likewise, users of these buses can access a mobile application to find out the schedule of the routes and see online the place where their transport is located.
This project considers the integration of people in its design, since the buses will transport Codelco workers together with collaborators from contracting companies, being one of the few mining companies in the industry to apply this type of measures. “This is great news, because we are breaking paradigms in the industry, so we celebrate that our own workers and contractors can have equal conditions for transportation,” said Juan Carlos Peña, Seremi de Minería.
The El Salvador program is part of Codelco’s commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, an objective that has led the company to create the largest fleet of electric mining buses in the national mining industry. The 30 buses in this fleet join the 155 operating in El Teniente, Chuquicamata and Andina. The CEO of the copper company, Rubén Alvarado, said that “milestones like this one manage to reconcile fundamental values: we reduce emissions, we develop smart bus stops with a circular economy, we integrate Codelco and contractor personnel; all based on collaboration with the companies we work with.”
Christian Toutin, general manager of Codelco Salvador, highlighted that “this project seeks to highlight the new mining that we want to develop, taking care of the environment and transforming our entire fleet to electric buses, with smart bus stops, mobile applications, but most importantly, integrating our own workers and those of collaborating companies, since we all seek the goal of more humane and efficient mining.”
The launching ceremony of the “Electromobility for El Salvador” program was attended by various regional authorities, along with representatives of workers, neighborhood associations and companies that worked on this project, such as Yutong, Tandem, Enel PSINet.
