Construction of first 1000 buses for Panama’s Metro transit to start this month

(newsroompanama.com) Panama’s Metro buses to replace the air and noise polluting Diablos Rojos will have a Volvo chassis, built in Sweden and fitted with a body built in Colombia.

The consortium that won the concession of to supply the vehicles, Mass Transit, has already placed an order for 1000 chassis.

The bodies will be manufactured in Colombia by Superpolo, a joint venture between Marcopolo and Fanalca.
Fanalca is a partner in the contRact winning Metrobus group.

The grinding of gears, a daily challenge to the ears from the existing fleet of buses will be gone as all vehicles will be equipped with automatic transmission, ABS and EBS, air conditioning, disc brakes and an advanced electronic suspension-tilt system that descends from the bus side to facilitate loading and unloading of passengers.

Luis Carlos Pimenta, President of Volvo Group for Latin America said the vehicles have low fuel consumption
Production will begin this month and could be completed in the second half of 2011. The first complete buses will be ready for delivery to Panama City at the end of this year.

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Original Source: http://www.newsroompanama.com/business/1571--construction-of-first-1000-buses-for-panamas-metro-transit-to-start-this-month.html
Date Retrieved: August 18, 2010