Alexander Dennis (ADL), the largest bus builder in the United Kingdom, now has its eyes set on creating new sectors in markets with product gaps and opportunities, and need for shorter, genuine buses that offer reliability, durability and longevity. Chief Executive Colin Robertson believes North America could be such a target.
Busworld Asia is one of the great events on the annual exhibition calendar. This year in Shanghai, May 6-8, visitors had the opportunity to also take in the World Expo. At any exhibition one expects to see some new models and innovation. The pace of change and the variety of new vehicles and components coming out of the world’s largest bus and coach building industry marks the difference between Busworld Asia and other exhibitions.
Every two years I carry out much of the research and write a large part of a report which has become an industry standard; the latest edition of “The World Bus & Coach Manufacturing Industry” report is due to be published in June.
Busworld, the Belgian organizer of international bus and coach exhibitions, recently held its third edition of Busworld Turkey in Istanbul in conjunction with its local partners. A number of significant changes were evident this year.
Introduced at APTA Expo 2008, the Rotary Mach 4 is the company’s most recent iteration of its mobile column lift. Rotary sales manager Roger Perlstein says this product sets up fast and raises a vehicle 70 inches in 78 seconds. The company claims this is quicker than comparable lifts.
A standing joke at the headquarters of the Stagecoach Group, Perth, Scotland, is how the staff must be ready on Monday mornings to hear of some new project that co-founder and chief executive Brian Souter has dreamed up over the weekend. The man is always thinking of novel ideas to drive the company forward, and many of them have been very successful. Stagecoach is without doubt the most innovative bus operator in the United Kingdom.
Every two years the city of Hanover in northern Germany hosts the largest commercial vehicle exhibition in Europe. The exhibition area is vast with covered halls and large open-air displays with room for the more than 2,000 exhibitors and every kind of commercial vehicle. This year the show welcomed nearly 300,000 visitors from 110 countries.