The WA Government has awarded a five year contract to Volvo Bus to produce 65 low floors a year from mid-2011 in partnership with Volgren, leaving Mercedes-Benz behind
By David Goeldner | November 3, 2010
TransPerth will switch from Mercedes-Benz to Volvo with a new five year contract announced this week, ordering 65 buses a year from July 2011.
WA Transport Minister Simon O’Brien says Volvo will provide the chassis and Volgren would manufacture the bus bodies at their Malaga plant in Perth.
“Deliveries to the Public Transport Authority start in July 2011, immediately following the expiration of the contract which the previous Coalition Government set in place in 1999,” O’Brien says.
“The new contract enables a seamless continuation of the program to update and modernise the fleet with new, low-floor gas and diesel-powered buses.”
It also means Volgren will continue making buses for TransPerth as they have done for the past 11 years.
Volgren Managing Director Peter Dale says 950 buses have been produced in Perth over that period.
“It is wonderful that our strong relationship will continue,” Dale says.
He says Volgren’s Malaga facility had created 100 jobs, plus a further 60 jobs in the local supply chain, and he was delighted those jobs were secure – at least for the next five years.
Under the new contract, Volgren will create more jobs by adding a Perth-based service and refurbishment facility that will augment the Malaga plant.
The new facility will provide a base for Volgren’s mobile field service technicians, provide a range of body maintenance and repairs, and house a spare parts store and dispatch centre.
Dale says the Malaga location in Perth’s northern industrial precinct provides a springboard for potential export markets, particularly in Asia, with the facility having already produced more than 150 buses for local and overseas clients, outside the TransPerth contracts.
Initially the WA Government contract will supply diesel vehicles, which will maintain the fleet mix at half diesel and half CNG buses.
Beyond 2014, TransPerth will consider a new CNG bus platform incorporating new engine technology in the Volvo chassis.