New bendy bus promoting Swiss-wrestling tournament enters into service

As of yesterday, a new bendy bus of the Zugerland Transport Company with creative livery promoting the National Swiss Wrestling and Alpine Festival (Esaf) entered into service on the city’s streets.

It will not have gone unnoticed that this Esaf event is to take place this August, and to promote the event even further the ZVB company commissioned this articulated bus, its bellows made to look as if it is a large accordion, with wooden chalets and flowers painted on the side of the bus, too. What is more, when you get inside, you can hear appropriate Alpine-style Swiss music, and you will not fail to notice the typical Swiss-wrestling shorts and cow bells hanging on the grip bars.

Speaking at the presentation of the bus, ZVB boss Cyrill Weber took the opportunity to talk about the challenges of running the company, this year in particular, with many staff, not just drivers but those who work on maintenance at the depot, too, being required during the period of the Esaf, to make sure all spectators arrive on time, quite a logistical challenge.

Another challenge facing the ZVB is the necessity to provide more service as the rail service on the eastern shore of the lake, between Oberwil and Arth-Goldau, is to be suspended for 18 months from Whitsun weekend (9-10 June) onwards. For the ZVB, 2019 is far from a normal year.

However, one highlight for the company will be the introduction of the first totally electric e-bus, an e-Citaro model by Mercedes, in September. Not that everything is complete with just the acquisition of it, the appropriate infrastructure needs to be in place, i.e. an e-charging point is having to be set up, and maintenance staff trained accordingly.

Also present on the occasion of the launch of the eye-catching Esaf-themed articulated bus was Markus Hackenfort, professor of traffic, security and environmental psychology at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), who presented a talk relating to energy- efficient and resource-protecting mobility behaviour. He mentioned, for example, that there was little point in talking about C02 emissions when it came to vehicles as many people did not really understand what this meant, hence the CO2 level needed to be given an emotional context. Looking further into to the future, he saw driverless vehicles leading to increased attractivity in individual mobility.

This article is based on one written by Andrea Muff.