The City Council will launch next Monday the new urban bus service awarded to Avanza

The contract involves a reinforcement of the three lines and increased frequency, with access to the industrial park from Monday to Friday from early in the morning until 18.30 hours.

Line 2 reaches the hospital in all its expeditions from Monday to Sunday, and line 3 ends at Juan Carlos I Avenue.

The mayor of Estepona, José María García Urbano, today presented several of the new vehicles of the company Avanza, which from next Monday, August 19, will be in charge of the urban transport service. The new contract will mean a significant improvement in both the coverage of areas and the frequency of passage.

The new service, in which the City Council has invested 600,000 euros, includes the reinforcement of the three lines, with new features such as access to the industrial estate from Monday to Friday working hours from first thing in the morning (7.20 am) until 6.30 pm. Another improvement affects line 2, which corresponds to the west area, is circular and runs from the stop located at Avenida Juan Carlos I to the Bermuda Beach urbanization (western area of the municipality of Estepona). This line will be reinforced with 8 daily routes, double the number offered to users until now. An important novelty is that it accesses the hospital in all its expeditions from Monday to Sunday.

As for the new line 3, in charge of covering the eastern area, it will run from the Avenida España traffic circle with Avenida Andalucía to Avenida Juan Carlos I (City Hall), which will be the last stop. The frequency of the buses will be every half hour.

Users already have at their disposal the Avanza Costa del Sol Card, which allows its use as a bus pass for an amount of 0.70 euros per trip in the three urban lines. The same card can be used for all Avanza interurban lines, thus offering intermodality for the use of public transport. This card currently has a 60% discount for interurban lines based on RD 8/2023 and the support of the Junta de Andalucía, valid until December 31 of this year.

The bonobús can be purchased at all Avanza ticket offices. In Estepona, at the bus terminal, and it can also be recharged in all urban buses of Estepona and intercity buses of Avanza (minimum amount 5 euros and multiples of 1 euro).

The timetables of the urban lines are available on the web malaga.avanzagrupo.com/en/destinos/estepona and in the Avanza Costa del Sol app, where schedules and real waiting time will be shown. Soon all stops will be equipped with a QR code so that from any mobile device the actual waiting times can be consulted, already available for intercity stops.

All vehicles are equipped with location and ‘cyberpass’, which allows blind people who need it to activate the external and internal audios of the bus to know the next stop or which bus is approaching it. The vehicles are also equipped with an internal display that informs of the next stop. All this is also available in the entire intercity fleet.

The Estepona City Council has allocated more than 600,000 euros to the improvement of this service, which has meant a six-fold increase in the subsidy for the previous service. The new regular urban public passenger transport service is contracted for an initial period of one year, although work is already underway on the tender documents to put out to tender a contract for a total period of ten years.