Visit by the Chilean Ambassador

Today, I am glad to welcome the host for the visit, Senior Vice President for North and South America, Tore Bäckström as guest in the blog.

 

 

The guests Consul of Chile Juan C. Salazar-Alvarez, Ambassador of Chile, José Miguel Cruz together with the host Senior Vice President Business Region North and South America, Tore Bäckström

Friday the 28th of June Volvo was visited by the Ambassador of Chile. Some years ago Volvo supplied one of the largest bus orders ever to Santiago de Chile and it was really quite a task to have more than 1000 buses delivered in 9 months and transported over the Andees.

At the point we were immensely proud to become a part of the rapid development of Chile. Chile is an extraordinary example with more than 15 years of continuous growth. Now a few years later we can note that the infrastructure investments and changes are starting to happen , somewhat late but certainly helping the functionality of the system. Still seems to be issues on the telematics side and with prepaid tickets missing, that would give a further significant improvement to the functionality.
 
Because of our involvement in Santiago, we were particularly honoured to be given the opportunity to host the Ambassador José Miguel Cruz and the Consul of Chile Juan C. Salazar-Alvarez. Naturally, we came to discuss the global development and the rising concern about environmental matters.
 
As Edwards presentation was centred about transport efficiency and carbon footprint, comparison was made to different alternatives. While public transport, in the awareness of the general public, is considered environmentally friendly, buses in general are considered the black sheep of public transports. In reality however the truth is the opposite, buses give most environmental benefit for the money.
 
The bus system of Santiago that combines Bus Rapid Transit with feeder lines is probably the most optimal public transport you can build. The combination of infrastructure support by dedicated lanes, ( not really separate platforms ) , electronic passenger information and traffic control systems and bus stations that promote rapid shift from one bus line to the other are all instrumental for the success of the system. And, most importantly efficient transport of persons is profitable for society and economical growth. Society saves money mainly by shortening transport times and decreasing use of energy.

30 litre per 100 km!

41 litre per 100 km is the average fuel consumption in city traffic (33% idle and average speed of 19 km/h) of all Volvo B7R and Volvo B7RLE chassis delivered since the introduction of Euro IV in 2006. The new D7 engine has become a favourite of environmental managers.

And, with the increasing oil price, the interest for the Volvo 8500 and Volvo 8700 series have grown a lot. The low entry buses are popular for their versatility allowing any type of traffic from inner city to intercity operation.

In commuter traffic (20% idle and average speed of 40 km/h) the customer average fuel consumption is 30 litre per 100 km!

The 8500 model is built in the light weight aluminium technology while the 8700 series has a modern stainless steel body.

The Volvo 8700 low entry in the picture is used in the Helsinki Jokeri Line that is an express bus service. It is supplied with Euro V incentive emission certificate. The rout has been given priority in traffic and has special designed buses and bus stops. It has become a tremendous success among the travellers because of the rapid access to the city.

My speach in Brussels

The 5th Diesel Emissions Conference was this time held in Brussels. The global forum for diesel emissions covers all kinds of emissions from diesel use, from cars to HD trucks. With the up-coming US10, Euro V and Euro VI the presentations focused on different technologies to meet the future challenges.

Paul Wauters gave a presentation from a user perspective. Today when incentives are given locally for buying in to Euro V incentive ahead of legislation, how does this pay off for the truck operator? As it turns out, economically there is not much difference as compared to Euro IV. The message to the legislators was to look over the local incentive rules and to harmonise them.

Barb Samardzich, Vice President of Powertrain Engineering at Ford Motors, explained the complex situation of diesel use in the US. There are strong emotional boundaries that prevents rapid growth of the most efficient propulsion technologies. In addition with future emission legislation, catalytic emission control relies on a second “fuel”, AdBlue. Build-up of supply chains was said to be far from easy in the US infrastructure for transportation.

In my presentation, I highlighted the future challenges where multiple factors lead to new demands for transport solutions for public transports and buses:

- increasing oil price

- biomass price race and priorities for transports versus food

- availability of natural gas and local biogas production

- global warming priorities for decreased green house gases

- coal power plants for electricity production

- and most importantly the need to decrease energy use

In that perspective it is essential to find solutions that are cost efficient for society and provides maximum benefit for the environment. The prioritised actions from society should be:

1, Increase the priority from society of the person transports that gives the most performance per cost unit (mostly, this means priority to bus over cars, rails, tram and metro).

2, Put priority to further improving the infrastructure for the most efficient technology (mostly, this means that bus traffic should be prioritised in infrastructure, the key word is Bus Rapid Transit, BRT)

3, Put priority to investments in vehicles that offers the lowest energy “cost” (mostly, this will lead to hybrid buses)

4, Be open for harmonisation of emission legislation, test cycles, fuel standards, incentives and taxes (mostly, this will lead to less local solutions, lower cost, increased competitiveness, globally)

The analysis was strongly supported by most of the audience.

During the question session it was said that the political “time constant” or election periods, of 3-5 years, is too short to motivate long term infrastructural decisions and even cost efficient long term decissions.

On the way back I was glad to find that the commuter buses from the city centre to the airport seems to have gained some priority. The bus stop has been moved closer to the terminal and if I am not mistaken there has been made room for additional routs to traffic the airport. De Lijn operates the route amongst others with the Volvo fuel consumption star B7RLE (in this case with a Jonckheere body, if I managed to read the labelling right on the run).

Going greener

 

 We gathered ten strong environemental arguments for travel by bus. Some are general while several are specific for the Volvo Buses.
 
The information was carefully selected to be objective and representative. A colleague, Thomas Lundqvist, suggested that the best way to present the message was as a short film.
 
For me it was a new experience. We used it at the Bus World exhibition in Belgium and now I often get requests by mail for a link to the film. Here it is:
http://www.volvo.com/bus/global/en-gb/volvogroup/Environment/going+greener/