Jaén City Council has awarded FCC Medio Ambiente (the Spanish brand for FCC Environment) the contract to provide refuse collection, street cleaning and upkeep of green spaces services for 12 years, plus two possible four year extensions. It involves annual sales of almost €12 million for a contract total of about €143 million.

Jaén has a population of some 115,000 and FCC has been providing municipal services in the city since 1985.

FCC will completely renew the machinery and equipment for the services with units designed and adapted to the city’s specific needs. It will have six rear-loading and seven side-loading collection vehicles, all equipped with weighing scales, as well as six mechanical sweepers and 75 light and other vehicles. In this new contract, the company is committed to introducing electric mobility technology to give the city a more sustainable service and to reduce the environmental impact. It will put into service a total of 34 electric vehicles, among these are inspection vans and cars, and auxiliary vehicles for sweeping, as well as a large amount of electric tools.

Other improvements to be incorporated by FCC include a mobile Civic Amenity Site service and the construction of a Civic Amenity Site facility. To eliminate the manual collection of bags in the area of narrow streets in the city, a specific service will be started for the daily placement and collection of bins. This will free up the space these occupy during the day and avoid interference with the activity in the area.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) will have an important role since the VISION computer platform, developed exclusively by FCC Medio Ambiente, will be implemented for the integrated management of the services. This platform will support the making up of an inventory of the city’s green spaces.
Other innovative technological aspects of the services will be the implementation of the remote management and automation of the watering services with a special vehicle to apply plant care products. This vehicle has been developed by FCC in collaboration with prestigious academic organisations such as the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) and the Valencia Institute for Agricultural Research (IVIA).

The investment in improvements during the contract is approximately €6 million.

To provide the new services, FCC Medio Ambiente will have a staff of more than 180 full-time and 130 part-time people, for whom specific training and equality plans will be developed.