Soléa is a public transport operator in the French city of

Mulhouse Mulhouse (; Alsatian: or , ; ; meaning ''mill house'') is a city of the Haut-Rhin department, in the Grand Est region, eastern France, close to the Swiss and German borders. It is the largest city in Haut-Rhin and second largest in Alsace af ...

. Under contract to the

Mulhouse Alsace Agglomération The Mulhouse Alsace Agglomération is the ''Communauté d'agglomération'', a type of local government structure, covering the metropolitan area of the city of Mulhouse in the department of Haut-Rhin and the region of Grand Est, northeastern Fra ...

, it operates the city's bus network and three of the lines of the city's tram network. It also jointly operates, with the French national rail operator

SNCF The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (; abbreviated as SNCF ; French for "National society of French railroads") is France's national state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the country's national rail traffi ...

, the city's fourth tram line, a

tram-train A tram-train is a type of light rail vehicle that meets the standards of a light rail system (usually an urban street running tramway), but which also meets national mainline standards permitting operation alongside mainline trains. This al ...

service. Soléa is a mixed private and public sector company. Its principal shareholders are the transport group

Transdev Transdev, formerly Veolia Transdev, is a French-based international private-sector company which operates public transport. It has operations in 17 countries and territories as of November 2020. History The group was formed by the merger of V ...

(67.8%), the

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

transport operator RATP (20%), the Mulhouse Alsace Agglomération (10%) and the

Colmar Colmar (, ; Alsatian: ' ; German during 1871–1918 and 1940–1945: ') is a city and commune in the Haut-Rhin department and Grand Est region of north-eastern France. The third-largest commune in Alsace (after Strasbourg and Mulhouse), it i ...

transport operator

TRACE Trace may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * ''Trace'' (Son Volt album), 1995 * ''Trace'' (Died Pretty album), 1993 * Trace (band), a Dutch progressive rock band * ''The Trace'' (album) Other uses in arts and entertainment * ''Trace'' ...

(1%). Soléa carries more than 107,800 passengers per day, and serves a community of 245 367 inhabitants, in an area of . It has 544 employees.

Trams

The Mulhouse tram system commenced service in 2006, and was last extended in December 2010. It now comprises three purely tram lines, plus one hybrid

line: * Line 1 from Gare Central to Châtaignier * Line 2 from Nouveau Bassin to Coteaux * Line 3 from Gare Central to Lutterbach * Tram-train line from Gare Centrale to Thann via Lutterbach The system is operated by 27 Alstom Citadis 302 trams, which operate routes 1 to 3, and 12 Siemens Avanto tram-trains, which operate the route to Thann. On the latter route, Soléa manages the route as far as Lutterbach and provides 25% of the drivers, whilst the remainder of the route and the remaining drivers are provided by the SNCF.

Buses

Soléa operates 21 daytime bus routes, plus a shuttle service between Gare Central and Mulhouse hospital. It also operates 13 routes on evenings, Sundays and holidays, and 13 school bus routes. It does this with a fleet of 131 buses, of which 43 are

articulated bus An articulated bus, also referred to as a banana bus, bendy bus, tandem bus, vestibule bus, wiggle wagon, stretch bus, or an accordion bus, (either a motor bus or trolleybus) is an articulated vehicle used in public transportation. It is usua ...

es.

References

External links

Soléa web site

Mulhouse Public transport operators in France Transport in Grand Est {{France-company-stub