Bus BUSiness for Mercedes-Benz customers

Every two years, Mercedes-Benz hosts thousands of international customers to its Bus Days. The highlight of the most recent of these events was the company’s next generation of buses.

With Europe now firmly in the grasp of Euro-6 emissions legislation, the next generation of vehicles is now well and truly taking hold, as Mercedes-Benz was keen to show at its recent Mercedes-Benz Bus Days (Mercedes-Benz Omnibustage or MOT) event.

Held every two years, the event hosts private bus operators and public transport users who can find out about the latest bus products, services and trends within the Mercedes-Benz stable. The most recent Bus Days event was held in the “bus city” of Mannheim, Germany, between November 7 and 11, 2013. The event attracted over
6 200 visitors from more than 20 countries.

“Next Generation BUSiness” was the tagline of the 2013 Mercedes-Benz Bus Days, referring to the new business ideas that companies can take with them from the event, as well as to the new generation of buses that are now entirely Euro-6 specification compliant.

The highlights of the Bus Days included the company’s Euro-6 European bus range, the service portfolio, used buses and the Mercedes-Benz Symposium – where experts presented and discussed the public transport trends of tomorrow with visitors.

Here, interesting topics discussed included the 28 model ranges with different propulsion systems that were tested over two years by Austrian transport operator Wiener Linien, before it decided to employ Mercedes-Benz in its fleet.

There were also talks by Gustav Tuschen, head of development at Daimler Buses, about the potential and opportunities for conventional drive systems in commercial vehicles, and Manfred Schuckert, responsible for corporate strategy, emissions and safety for commercial vehicles at Daimler, about the future and lawmakers’ expectations up to 2025.

The roughly 3 500 m2 of exhibition space was used to present the latest releases from Mercedes-Benz alongside a fascinating supporting programme. There were ten vehicles on show, representing everything from the Sprinter minibuses and two variants of the Citaro; to the completely overhauled Intouro and the Tourismo including the new, compact Tourismo K with a total length of 10,32 m; as well as the Travego, the ultimate touring coach in the Mercedes-Benz range.

Since the first series-production touring coach, the Travego Edition 1, was delivered last year, more than 1 000 Euro-6 Daimler buses have been put on the road. This is set to rise to around
1 700 urban buses and touring coaches by the end of the year. Visitors also had the opportunity to test drive a number of these buses.

But in addition to new vehicles, used buses are also an important part of the event. The new BusStore used bus brand offers a large selection of buses featuring a variety of ages and brands.

Finally, the bus range was rounded off by Omniplus with its individual service agreements – further pushing home the point that, for Daimler Buses, the bus business also centres on the service provided after a bus has been sold.