TITSA

TITSA
Headquarters Punta de Anaga,1
Santa María del Mar
Locale Tenerife
Service type bus service
Website titsa.com
The temporarily closed (2011) bus station of Puerto de la Cruz

TITSA is the Transportes interurbanos de Tenerife, S.A. which operates the only public bus service in Tenerife, on the Canary Islands. It carries over 60 million travellers a year, has a fleet of, approx., 600 vehicles, takes children to school, old persons to hospital, and offers the tourist a better way to see the island apart from hiring a car, so it helps environmentally by cutting CO2.

History

In 1884, the Omnibus Company started a bus line between Santa Cruz and La Laguna operating a single one-horse open carriage. By 1885 they had the four and six horse stagecoaches, with an additional line from Santa Cruz to La Orotava. In 1898, development of the electric tram system began, with the inaugural trip in 1901. Soon the tram replaced horse on the existing lines, and a new line was built from Santa Cruz to Icod de los Vinos. In 1904 track was laid from La Laguna to Tacoronte. By 1950, the company had 21 km of track, with four stationhouses: Santa Cruz, La Cuesta, La Laguna and Tacoronte. But by 1959 it was all abandoned, bus service had replaced the trams.[1]

The Camacho Hotel Company had introduced the first gasoline powered bus in 1904. In 1927, the authorities decided to control bus service and divided the island into a north and a south zone. Two different bus companies won the contracts for the two zones. Although in 1928 they amalgamated to form a single company, different managers continued to manage different lines, and they did not always co-operate on schedules. The growth of improved roads between 1930 and 1950 gave the rail-independent buses the financial edge over the electric trams.[1]

In 1942 the bus system was reorganized into an integrated system .In 1978, it changed its name to TITSA and the major shareholder (85%)was the Spanish state railway RENFE. In 1986, TITSA was handed to the Canaries Government.[1] In 2007, TITSA was transferred to be directly administered by the Tenerife council, the Cabildo Tenerife.[2]

On Tenerife, the common word for bus is guagua (pronounced wah-wah) - a slang name more often heard in South America.

TITSA Bus service 102 (Santa Cruz to Puerto de la Cruz at Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Depots

The company has five Depots:

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 "a brief review of the history of the company..." TITSA
  2. ↑ Tenerife government takes over TITSA directly (Spanish newspaper)
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