Volvo Buses to deliver 187 units in Colombia deal

Volvo Bus Corporation has received an order for 187 buses for the first phase of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in Santiago de Cali, Colombia. The buses will be delivered between August and November 2007.

A growing number of cities in the world are choosing to build intelligent transit systems based on BRT systems, and the Transmilenio BRT system in Colombia's capital city, Bogota, is reportedly the world's largest. According to Volvo, it has substantially improved the traffic situation in the city, reduced the number of accidents and contributed to a considerably improved air quality. The population density in our cities is rising at an increasingly faster pace, resulting in untenable situations with regard to congestion, environment and diminishing quality of life, says Hakan Karlsson, president of Volvo Buses. Cities that succeed in changing their infrastructure and establishing effective transit systems will increase their attractiveness. The world's second largest manufacturer of large buses and coaches said that the system in Santiago de Cali is similar to the system implemented in Bogota, including large cross-city lines with separate bus lanes and raised stations for rapid loading and exiting. Although there are many similarities with the system in Bogota, Mio is entirely designed for the conditions applicable in Santiago de Cali, said Miquel Arrata, responsible for BRT systems at Volvo Buses in Latin America. This flexibility is one of the strengths of a BRT system. Under the order, which came from Grupo Integrado de Transporte Masivo and Blanco y Negro Masivo, Volvo will deliver 187 buses for the first phase of implementing the BRT system, including 57 18-meter articulated buses, Volvo B12MAs, and 130 12-meter buses, Volvo B7Rs. The bus chassis will be built in Bogota, Colombia from assembly kits packed in Volvo Buses' plants in Boras, Sweden and Curitiba, Brazil, while the bodies will be built by Marcopolo, also located in Bogota. The next phase of the build out of the BRT system in Santiago de Cali starts in 2008 and the operator will need about the same number of buses as this time. We are proud at Volvo Buses to be involved when another BRT system starts up in the world, says Hakan Karlsson. We are convinced that an intelligent transport system based on bus traffic is the best way to deal with the growing traffic problems in cities and at the same time contributed to the necessary limiting of carbon dioxide emissions. In addition to the two systems in Colombia, Volvo has delivered buses to BRT systems in Curitiba, Brazil, Mexico City and Leon, Mexico, Santiago, Chile, Goteborg, Sweden, Helsinki, Finland and other cities.