The “Société des Transports Intercommunaux de Bruxelles” (STIB-MIVB) is the public transport provider in Brussels, operating approx. 1,200 vehicles. In the wake of a strong commitment to sustainability, STIB is modernising its bus fleet and has decided to purchase hybrid and full electric buses. As these are produced to order, bus manufacturing differs markedly from mass-production processes such as those for passenger cars. The pre-shipment inspection of buses produced at the place of manufacturing helps to drastically reduce quality issues and defects and to slash high maintenance costs. Additionally, outsourcing this to a third party not only leads to greater cost effectiveness but also speeds up quality improvement and reduces conflicts between producer and buyer.
STIB discovered these advantages at an early stage and issued an invitation to tender. TÜV NORD, which ultimately won the contract, started work in February 2018 and has already acquired some valuable experience. Bartlomiej Wojtowicz, head of TÜV NORD Mobilität's profit centre in Poland and technical project leader, reports that TÜV NORD will inspect approx. 280 buses from four manufacturers for STIB-MIVB: “To ensure real time reporting, a special Bus Reporting Tool is being developed. It seems that we have found a niche that nobody else has yet occupied, and this might be a game-changing service in the fleet purchase process for public transport companies.” The customer is happy with the results thus far, as an early inspection before delivery will speed up the opening of a new line and fleet replacements.
Ingo Albes, Director of Business Development Europe at TÜV NORD Mobilität, wants to push this service more forcefully: “This relatively new service has a lot of potential, and the advantages we could bring to the STIB project are obvious. With our skilled and flexible bus specialist team and the international organisation of TÜV NORD, we can offer this service across the world. Our colleagues from TÜV NORD France have in this regard recruited skilled French-speaking project manager Alain Ormeggi, thereby making our team complete.”