From this year on, Gotland's public transportation will be run by Bivab and its subcontractor, GotlandsBuss. Because of this, GotlandsBuss has ordered 39 buses from IVECO. These buses will be used to run the school and other services on the island. All of the buses are made by Swedish IVECO supplier Wetlandia. Sixteen buses run on HVO100, and the other 23 buses run on biogas.
Between 2009 and 2020, all school and regular services on Gotland were run by GotlandsBuss. Now, they have won the bid again as a subcontractor for Bivab. They will start serving the island in June 2023. So, they have ordered 66 buses to get people around Gotland. Of these, 39 will come from the IVECO dealer Wetlandia. These buses will go all over Gotland. There will be school buses, buses that go between cities, city buses, and buses that go where people want to go.
Goran Hult, the CEO of GotlandsBuss, says that both the IVECO buses and Wetlandia have been good for them during the whole process.
"We have a lot of faith in Wetlandia, and they worked hard on both the product and on working with us. We liked how determined they were to work well together, which gave us confidence that we'd get the service and buses we needed", says Göran Hult.
"The test drive of the IVECO Crossway buses went well. It was a pleasant surprise to see how powerful the engine was and how comfortable the car was. We liked how simple the design was and how good it felt. It was a very comfortable driver's seat, and when we took it for a test drive, we saw that it would be a good bus for our planned traffic."
The order from IVECO includes three IVECO 70C Rapidos with 29 seats, four IVECO Crossway LE 12 meters Citys with 37 seats, 13 IVECO 70C Feniks with 31 seats, and 19 IVECO Crossway LE 13 meters Lines with 49 seats.
When it comes to buses, IVECO has a very good selection. Especially for the 29- and 31-seat buses, which can only be made with an IVECO chassis. IVECO is the only company that can offer a 7.2-ton chassis and builds a bus that size, so it has the exclusive right to do so and can offer something different. IVECO is also a good choice for gas-powered cars, which was another factor in this order.
"We had a rule that all fuel had to come from biofuels. The contract also said that 70% of the energy used in the agreement had to come from biogas, which IVECO could do without any problems. The biogas is also made locally on Gotland, which is also good from an environmental point of view."
Göran Hult concludes: "We can't wait for the buses to start running and for us to take over public transportation on Gotland."
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