Moventia maintains its support for society

Moventia has agreed to maintain its partnerships with all the social entities it has been providing resources to for many years. This decision has been taken based on the effort and commitment that, now more than ever, our society needs from companies within the business fabric to help deal with the complicated situations we are experiencing as a result of the crisis caused by COVID-19.

Over the course of recent years, Moventia’s solidarity partnerships have been focused on a commitment to guaranteeing mobility to the public and people with difficulty in accessing these services. However, the coronavirus crisis has led Moventia to make the funds provided under these partnerships available so they can be allocated wherever needed and deemed most appropriate in order to alleviate and improve the tough situations being caused by COVID-19. These are difficult times for everyone, including Moventia, but the company wishes to maintain its commitment to working with society.

Bla Bla Bus renews contract with Sarfa

Following several months of negotiation, Sarfa has signed a partnership agreement with the company BlaBlabus – the operator of several intercity lines in France – to operate the routes starting or finishing in the city of Barcelona. The specific lines subject to this agreement are:

 

Marseille – Montpellier – Barcelona

Marseille – Nîmes – Montpellier – Perpignan – Barcelona

Bordeaux – Toulouse – Perpignan – Barcelona

Lyon – Montpellier – Perpignan – Barcelona

Paris – Lyon – Barcelona

Barcelona – Perpignan – Carcassonne – Toulouse – Paris

 

The agreement will last four years, during which time Sarfa must provide the service according to the image and quality standards and measures defined by BlaBlaBus. The buses are fully identified with the service image and the drivers are especially chosen for their quality and skill, as well as because they can speak to passengers in French, Spanish and Catalan.

 

This agreement consolidates Sarfa’s presence in France, with services it has been providing non-stop since 2014.

 

Auser now also doing business in Manresa and Vic

Auser, the official Renault and Dacia dealership of the Movento Group, is expanding its sphere of influence with two new official dealerships and garages in Manresa and Vic after taking over the dealerships for these brands in Bages and Osona. Auser has thus boosted its distribution activity for Renault and Dacia by including a strategic area into its already solid network in the cities of Pineda de Mar, Mataró, Badalona, Cerdanyola, Rubí, Sabadell, Sant Cugat del Vallès and Terrassa.

By opening these facilities, Movento – a benchmark group in private mobility services with 67 years of history – has consolidated its operation in an area where it already operates alongside Sarsa (Audi and Volkswagen), Stern Motor (Mercedes and Smart) and Auto Pla Vic 4×4 (Jaguar and Land Rover).

The combination of experience and professionalism offered by the Auser team, together with Movento’s regional knowledge, will enable a new and exciting project to be launched to provide the best purchase experience and an after-sales service of the highest quality to its customers.

“We are very pleased and excited to be able to now offer our services to customers in this strategic area for us, and we are convinced that we will become the benchmark dealership for the area thanks to our high-quality personalised service”, explains Antoni Sánchez Aguirre, Auser Manager.

Movento awared certificate as “dealership protected against COVID-19″

All Movento centres have been awarded the “Dealership Protected against COVID-19” seal of quality from Faconauto, guaranteeing compliance with the Protection and Prevention Protocol and aimed at highlighting a commitment by official dealerships to employee and customer health.

This seal of quality forms part of a pioneering initiative guaranteed and supported by the certification company TÜV SÜD ATISAE that specialises in the management and validation of certificate issue and subsequent audits to ensure commitments are maintained.

 The Protection and Prevention Protocol forms the basis of this seal of quality and was produced by Faconauto, Anfac and Sernauto, the employers’ association and main business associations in the sector, respectively, together with the two main trade unions in Spain, UGT and CCOO, and subsequently validated by the Spanish Ministry of Health.

The hallmark guarantees the level of safety, confidence and professionalism being offered by Movento to its customers since its premises reopened.

16 New VILLAVESA Buses

At an event held this morning at the Pamplona City Transport bus depot, the Association of Municipalities of the Region of Pamplona presented the 16 new hybrid buses that will join the company’s bus fleet from today. The event was attended by the Councillor for Territorial Cohesion of the Regional Government of Navarre, Bernardo Ciriza, the President of the Association of Municipalities of the Region of Pamplona, David Campión, and the Managing Director of Moventia Group, Josep María Martí.

Of the 16 new vehicles, seven are ‘Lions’s City 18C EfficientHybrid’ articulated MAN vehicles measuring 18 metres in length. They are fitted with hybrid 265 kW motors. Each vehicle can carry a total of 152 passengers (37 seated), plus two wheelchairs.

The other nine vehicles (12 metres in length) are the ‘Lions’s City 12C EfficientHybrid’ model from MAN. They are also fitted with 206 kW hybrid motors. Each of these vehicles can carry a total of 105 passengers (23 seated), plus two wheelchairs.

It should be stressed that all 16 vehicles meet the EURO VI pollution limits set by the European Union. They are all fitted with safety screens and security video cameras, meaning that the entire fleet has this system.

The purchase of these vehicles was awarded in 2019 and they are scheduled to enter service during the first fortnight of July once the vehicle registration process can be completed following a delay due to the coronavirus crisis.

A fleet of 159 vehicles with an average age of 6.75 years

The addition of these 16 new vehicles and the withdrawal from service of the five oldest means that the TUC fleet now consists of 159 vehicles with an average age of 6.75 years. Of all the vehicles in the fleet, 57 are articulated (18 metres), 100 are 12-metre buses and two are 10-metre buses. In anticipation of future needs due to possible capacity restrictions over the coming months as a result of COVID-19, 11 of the buses that should have been replaced by the new vehicles are being kept in temporary reserve and will be withdrawn from service at a later date.

It should be noted that the addition of these new vehicles into the fleet operated by Pamplona City Transport means there are now 56 hybrid vehicles and six electric vehicles running in the region; in other words, 39% of the fleet consists of environmentally efficient vehicles.

Ongoing solidarity from Movento

Movento has maintained its solidarity initiatives during the pandemic. Sarsa has provided three vehicles to the Consorci Sanitari de Terrassa [Terrassa Health Consortium] to help combat the coronavirus. These cars will provide support for house calls to patients who have already been discharged from hospital.

The entity was hugely grateful to the dealership for this move, as it gives front-line medical staff more resources to provide their highly professional services. The vehicles provided by the dealership are from its Volkswagen and Audi ranges, specifically the Tiguan, Polo and A1 models.

The Terrassa Health Consortium (CST) is a healthcare organisation that provides ongoing and coordinated healthcare services to the more than 200,000 inhabitants of Terrassa (Barcelona).

 

Sarsa also provided a Crafter van to the designer Miriam Ponsa to help distribute the overalls and face masks she has produced during the pandemic. 3,000 units per week have been delivered to various health centres in Catalonia. Overalls were also donated to Open Arms for professionals working at elderly care homes.

The following video shows the work being done by the designer: https://vimeo.com/427672713

 

In turn, Stern Motor has provided industrial vehicles (Sprinter, Vito, Citan) to local councils and customers to help combat the coronavirus. The recipients include: Torre de Claramunt Town Council for medical house calls and food deliveries; Falck Ambulancies to set up field hospitals; Joan Ribaroja to distribute medical equipment, PPE, disinfection equipment and separation screens; Altima Serveis Funeraris for equipment relocation and services; Sentmenat Town Council for medical house calls and food deliveries; and Castellar del Vallès Town Council for medical house calls and food deliveries

 

The Stern Motor team has also decided to support the solidarity-focused initiative undertaken by Nandu Jubany and the high-quality specialised kitchen clothing company CSTY, who have worked together to design charity face masks to help raise funds for research against the coronavirus.

The #ConUnaSonrisa campaign seeks to raise funds for research projects launched by Bellvitge University Hospital and the Catalan Oncology Institute to curb the epidemic and prevent new outbreaks.

These numerous initiatives have no doubt helped alleviate the impact of this pandemic for many people.

CityBike announces investment by Sherpa Capital in the company

Sherpa Capital, a private equity fund manager for investments in medium-sized enterprises with 300 million euros behind it, has announced its decision to invest in CityBike, a Spanish company set up by the Moventia Group in 2014 and a benchmark in the European micro-mobility market, specifically in the field of public bicycle system operation.

 

CityBike was set up in 2014 as a micro-mobility division of the Moventia Group, one of the country’s leaders in the transport sector, after being awarded the public bicycle system tender in Helsinki. Since then, CityBike has consolidated its position as one of the European benchmarks in this field and is the operator of another three concessions in Finland and Peru.

 

CityBike excels because of its unique offer in the European market as an independent operator of shared bicycle systems, its excellent track record in the concessions it already operates and a network of technology and trade partners that allow it to offer a unique solution tailored to meet the mobility needs of specific cities. This value proposition is supported by an outstanding human team led by Jordi Cabañas, General Manager of the company since it was set up and formerly Head of SmartBikes at one of the historical leaders in the shared bicycle segment.

 

At a sectoral level, public (or shared) bicycles offer an urban mobility alternative that is environmentally friendly and enables traffic congestion to be reduced in cities. This interest in shared bicycles has now been heightened by the search for non-massive environmentally friendly mobility solutions and alternatives to private transport and conventional public transport due to the COVID-19 situation. All this, in combination with the attractive CityBike proposal, mean they show significant growth prospects.

 

In this context, the investment by Sherpa Capital is aimed at further strengthening CityBike as a company and driving even faster growth in its international business by implementing new shared bicycle systems.

 

Jordi Cabañas, General Manager of the Public Bicycles Division of Moventia, CityBike, believes that “the investment by Sherpa in our company consolidates our international growth project and puts us in an excellent position to target the implementation of a large number of shared bicycle systems in cities across Europe and Latin America.”

 

Miquel Martí Pierre, Head of Expansion at Moventia, says “Moventia is extremely happy with this opportunity to continue growing one of our strategic divisions, public bicycles, now in partnership with Sherpa Capital. This is another opportunity for the group to consolidate the efforts and investments it has already made over the last 10 years in the micro-mobility sector, essential for any city and country wishing to make a clear commitment to sustainable mobility that can complement existing models.”

 

Lars Becker, a Partner at Sherpa, believes that “the investment by Sherpa in CityBike will give the company access to resources for implementing its expansion plan and will also serve to support the senior management team at an organisational level with a focus on commercial development and business scalability. Moventia’s extensive experience will also provide support throughout this process, as it will continue to offer highly valuable backing for the development of CityBike.”

 

Arcano and Scala Legal provided financial and legal consultancy services to Moventia-CityBike for the deal, respectively, with DLA Piper and KPMG acting as legal and financial advisers to Sherpa.

Hildegard Wortmann from Audi AG visits Sarsa Audi in Terrassa

Ms. Hildegard Wortmann, Member of the Board of Management of Audi AG for Marketing and Sales in Germany, was accompanied by Martin Sander, Mohamed Jaber and Bernhard Pflock from Audi AG, as well as a number of executives from Audi Spain, on a visit to Moventia yesterday. During the visit, they were told about what the company does and the people behind all that hard work. They were then given a detailed tour of the new modern installations at Sarsa Audi Terrassa.

Ms. Wortmann was accompanied on the tour by numerous Sarsa employees, who showed her around the various installations and spaces on site. She was very friendly with our staff and helped create a very relaxed atmosphere for the whole visit.

Audi chose the Sarsa-Audi dealership in Terrassa as the leading benchmark in Spain.

 

Motorprim renews its sponsorship with Barcelona Royal Polo Club

Motorprim, the official Hyundai dealership of the Movento group, has renewed its sponsorship agreement and become an institutional partner of the Barcelona Royal Polo Club after signing a two-year contract.

The Barcelona Royal Polo Club is one of the most important sports clubs in the world. It hosts both national and international competitions, such as the Barcelona Polo Challenge, the International Hockey Reyes Tournament and the Barcelona International Show Jumping Contest (CSIO Barcelona).

By renewing this partnership, Motorprim will become a Title Sponsor of the CSIO Barcelona Grand Prix and, for the 2020 season, the official vehicle of the club and its main events, as well as a sponsor of the Polo Music Festival.

Motorprim is thrilled to bring such brands as Hyundai to our customers through a commitment not only to quality but also to such values as sportsmanship, companionship, respect and fair play.