Allison Transmission has unveiled a new line of buses that incorporate automatic transmissions technology, to increase fuel efficiency.
Called extra fuel economy (xFE), the fully automatic bus transmissions are said to have shown improvements up to 7% in addition to the company's FuelSense features.
Allison Transmission has developed the B3400 xFE bus model for North American market. The company commenced production of this variant in Indianapolis last month.
For other markets outside of North America, the company will offer three xFE models, including the T3280 xFE, T3325 xFE and T3375 xFE.
Allison Transmission global marketing executive director Lawrence Love said: "Our goal with the new xFE portfolio is to achieve the best fuel economy from an automatic transmission in a bus."
The xFE-featured models adopt optimized gear ratios together with the FuelSense Max package. The units are said to deliver more lock up operation and operate at lower engine speeds in higher ranges.
Love said: "The new gear ratios work to achieve enhanced fuel economy in start-stop dense, low average speed duty cycles.
"Transit and city buses are the ideal candidates for this technology and that's why we're launching in those applications."
