The best-selling Citaro urban bus has already celebrated numerous successes. It is the world's best-selling Mercedes-Benz urban bus, has been voted "Bus of the Year", holds the Sustainability Award, is a winner of the "Green Bus Award" and was the first series production urban bus worldwide to comply with the Euro VI emission standard.
Now the Citaro is able to celebrate another milestone: not even two years after the Euro VI emission standard came into force, the 5000th Citaro Euro VI, an articulated Citaro Gü inter-city bus, has already been delivered. On 13 November 2015, Ulrich Bastert, Head of Marketing, Sales & After-Sales at Daimler Buses, handed the vehicle over to Vincent Ducrot, Director, and Luc Meyer, Technical Manager of Transports publics fribourgeois Holding (TPF) SA at the bus plant in Mannheim. The Citaro Gü will be in operation on inter-city routes throughout the canton of Fribourg.
It is no surprise that the 5000th Citaro Euro VI will be doing its duty in Switzerland in future. This classic urban bus is already in operation in over 40 countries of the world, and also extremely popular in Switzerland. Here it is the best-selling Mercedes-Benz bus of all time, with around 2400 units sold since its market launch. Its success comes thanks to the standardised modular concept.
Firstly, the commonality of parts between the Citaro models has a positive influence on the total cost of ownership (TCO), and secondly the modular principle makes the Citaro more flexible than any other urban bus. Whether as a solo, articulated, inter-city, short-wheelbase or LowEntry bus in combination with a free choice of equipment variants and the various engine and powertrain variants, the Citaro covers practically all the needs of transport operators in the urban and inter-city regular service sectors, also in topographically demanding regions such as the canton of Fribourg.
While the northern and western areas of the canton are part of the Swiss plateau and tend to be more flat, the Swiss Pre-Alps rise up in the south of the canton. So the route profile of the inter-city bus services is correspondingly hilly. The resulting demands present no problem for the Mercedes-Benz OM 470 BlueEfficiency Power engine that develops 265 kW (360 hp). This six-cylinder power unit excels with a low fuel consumption and high torque, thanks to the unique Common-Rail system with X-PULSE. The 10.7-litre OM 470 already delivers its maximum torque of 1700 Nm at 1100 rpm.
The Citaro Gü Euro VI is part of an order totalling 90 buses. The transport operator took passenger comfort and the requirements of the route into account when choosing the appointments. The vehicle therefore has for example bi-xenon headlamps, LED daytime driving lamps, a reversing camera and double-glazed side windows.
A compartment for snowchains is integrated into the right-hand side wall panelling behind the rear axle. All three doors are electrically operated. To provide even more space in the interior and accelerate the flow of passengers, doors 2 and 3 are pivoting sliding doors. This gives this version of the Citaro Gü Euro VI a capacity of 73 standing and 56 seated passengers. All the passenger seats are also fitted with seat belts.
A video surveillance system with six cameras evenly distributed around the interior is part of the standard equipment concept for the Swiss transport operator, as are the low-consumption LED interior lighting and the integrated IBIS onboard information system which includes traffic light override. A passenger counting system and efficient interior air conditioning round off the equipment package.
TPF services 127 of the 163 municipalities in the canton of Freibourg. The transport operator caters for practically all regional and urban public transport needs in the canton of Fribourg with its trains, trolley-buses and motor buses. The network has 66 routes covering a total area of 1303 km (1127 km on roads and 176 km on rails). 70,000 passengers enter the buses each day at the 699 bus stops. With around 200 buses, Transports publics fribourgeois Holding (TPF) SA has Switzerland's fourth-largest bus fleet. Around 65 percent of these are Mercedes-Benz Citaros.
