Trolley Buses on Target

Go Wellington today confirmed that the delivery of its new fleet of trolley buses is still on target to be completed by October 2009.

“An order for 59 new generation larger trolley buses was placed in December 2006 with New Zealand based company Designline”, said Bruce Emson, CEO of NZ Bus. “The order was based on a schedule agreed with Designline which requires completion of deliveries by October 2009”.

Five of the 59 trolley buses have been delivered and these are now in operation in Wellington.

“Last month Designline indicated to us that they were having issues complying with the early part of the delivery schedule. We have communicated this to Greater Wellington Regional Council and we have been in constant discussion with Designline to put in place a remediation plan in order to expedite the bus delivery. Designline have advised us that they are reorganising their production processes and that they will catch up the lost time, so that the order will be still be completed by October 2009”.

Jack Schroeder, Managing Director of Ashburton based company Designline said, “Operational issues have caused a delay in the delivery of the product to our customer NZ Bus. The trolley bus design is unique and each bus takes 3 months to build. We appreciate this is disappointing both for NZ Bus and the Wellington public. We are confident that our newly instigated robust processes and the additional resources we have put in place will ensure completion of deliveries on time”.

“We are looking forward to our new trolley bus fleet being fully operational on the streets of Wellington”, said Mr Emson. “NZ Bus believes they offer our customers an innovative and environmentally friendly public transport solution”, he adds.

ENDS

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