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Volvo Buses will supply 564 new Euro 6 buses for the RED System in Santiago de Chile

There will be 472 padrones and 92 articulated B8R Euro 6

24 February 2022

In the most important urban bus tender in Latin America in 2021/2022, Volvo will once again be one of the main vehicle suppliers for the Chilean capital. A few days ago, the Comptroller General of the Country awarded the concession for the use of the roads of the six service units of the capital. As adopted in Bogotá, for the Transmilenio system tenders that have been held since 2018, the fleet provider component has been separated from the fleet operator. This has been one of the main changes adopted by the Metropolitan Mobility Network, as the Santiago bus system is called.

The Volvo vehicles will be operated by RedBus, one of the concessionaires that already make up the Metropolitan Mobility Network, and by Metropol, a traditional Argentine operator that is making international inroads into this process in Chile. “We have a long experience in Santiago, with participation from the beginning of the city system. For years, Volvo buses have contributed to improving urban mobility in the Chilean capital, offering comfort and safety to passengers”, says Fabiano Todeschini, President of Volvo Buses Latin America.

With the separation of the two key components of the tender, to ensure financial closure and investment commitments, the companies that own the buses, called “Fleet Providers” (Capex) and the companies that will operate the vehicles, called “Operators” remain of Fleet” (Opex). The first group guarantees the supply of the buses, while the second is dedicated to the daily start-up of the vehicles, including their maintenance. The Volvo buses will be owned by Volvo Financial Services, the Group’s financial division, which will receive monthly amounts to make the vehicles available to the operating companies.

“This operating model is a pioneer in the continent. We are prepared to evaluate this concept also for the other cities in our region, always in partnership with Volvo Buses”, assures Carlos Ribeiro, president of Volvo Financial Services in South America. The new parameters require mechanisms that raise the quality of the new system design. “The contracts establish permanent certification of the maintenance of the buses throughout their lives. The objective is to guarantee the maximum availability of the vehicles, with safety for the passengers”, points out Alexandre Selski, Director of Strategic Sales at Volvo.

Training of drivers and maintenance personnel is also required, as well as telemetry systems for online bus management and operation. State-of-the-art bus The 92 articulated units are of the articulated Volvo B8R model, with the same specifications as the 200 units delivered by the brand to Santiago, which were bodied in Colombia by Superpolo.

It is a chassis with a low entry, capacity for 180 passengers and a 7.7-liter rear engine, while the remaining 472 buses are also low-entry Volvo B8Rs, but in the conventional monocoup configuration (standard), for 78 or 95 passengers, depending on the internal configuration.

Volvo chassis will be produced at the brand’s factories in Curitiba (Brazil) and Borås (Sweden); while the bodies will be The bodies of the RedBus operator will be supplied by Marcopolo, produced in Caxias do Sul (RS) and the bodies of the Metropol op

The Volvo B8Rs have the Euro 6 Volvo D8K diesel engine, six cylinders in line with a power of 320 hp and a torque of 1,200 Nm. from 1,050 to 1,600 rpm, complemented by a Voith D864.6 automatic transmission with integrated retarder from the Diwa family. The brakes are Volvo EBS5 electronically controlled disc brakes, ABS system, combined braking with retarder, hill start assist, brake assist, and hydraulic retarder integrated into the transmission.

The Red bus system serves around 6.2 million users in the 32 municipalities of the Metropolitan Region, plus Puente Alto and San Bernardo, a geographic and urban area of ​​around 680 square kilometers. On a business day, around three million transactions are carried out on more than two thousand buses in the system.