Wrong perspective.
You have already said, value for money. From what I have seen
being posted before here, the K230UB chassis is not exactly cheap
either. Moreover Scania is a very established brand for commercial
vehicles market, be it buses, trucks, etc. Not any ABC brand in the
market. In a business persepctive, I believe Scania wants to
establish a long term relationship with SBST, that's why they might
be offering value for money prices when purchasing in bulk. Buying
in bulk cheaply doesn't mean that the product alone is a cheap and
inferior product. And I believe the Scania K series chassis might
have undergone testing before SBST had really made a final decision
to purchase it in bulk. If not, what is SBS8033_ for???
However as a personal point of view, I believe that the Scania
K230UB chassis might have problems that is not suitable to the
local's hot climate and intensive conditions, which might, I
believe impair the performance of the bus, which is the same case
for some of the European buses here. That is why we can see SBST is
trying to rectify the mistakes for the EURO IV and EEV batches,
rather than we see nothing physical is being improved at all.
If the Scania K series chassis is so bad, then why bus companies in
Malaysia and even well established KMB from Hong Kong wants to buy
K series as their replacements for their single deckers, rather
than buying Dennis Enviro 200, for example???
SMRT is a failure in making profits, just look the results for
the past few years in the bus and cab division, much more worse
than ComfortDelgro. SMRT makes money because of it rail operations
and the way they make business is pro-profit and pro-company and
taking care of their own dividends only, not pro-service and
putting customers at interest. Their efficiency in bus operations
is also no better. Please don't quote a failure as an example, KMB
from Hong Kong will be a better example that will put our bus
operators in shame.
On the other perspective, partnership issues is another factor
that affects the bus company that purchase the particular brand of
bus chassis. TIBS established a well partnership with C&C in
Singapore, that is why they could buy Mercedes Benz buses in fleets
in the 1990s and the early 2000s. This partnership thus
automatically continues when SMRT took over TIBS after that, sadly.
Probably it is just too bad that SBS in the 1990s concentrated too
much on Volvo buses in the 1990s and thus might had lost the favour
from Mercedes Benz, which I say is a shame, as they had established
a good relationship with them since the 70s and 80s and early 90s.
However this is just a personal opinion at one's own point of view,
as we as outsiders will not really know what really happened or
what is happening between bus companies and chassis distributors.
But I really do hope that C&C and SBST will try to have that
kind of relationship back again.
On a personal note, however, I feel that this kind of
partnership for Singapore bus operators is plain stupid as it
affects both bus companies and chassis distributors. Bus companies
on one hand can only have limited brands to choose from when buying
new fleets, and chassis distributors on the other might lose an
opportunity to get a sales from a bigger or better bus company or a
bus company who is really interested in their products but cannot
have the partnership because of other tied partnership. Look at
Hong Kong bus operators, KMB, Citybus, ex CMB can buy within
many brands and brands that co-exist with each other, no matter it
is a Volvo Olympian, Dennis Tridents, Alexender Enviro 500, Volvo
B9TL. Sadly for our local case, it is all about restrictions,
restrictions and more restrictions.
Lastly, as people who like buses, we should now know what are
the common traits of certain chassis from certain brands. Take
Scania as a good example, we all know that most Scania city buses
are prone to vibrations, be it SBST's N113CRBs, L94UB, or K230UBs
and TIBS's acquired L113CRLs, all these buses we have taken before,
we all know will have that kind of vibrations. As a bus fan, we
should be readily prepared for it and probably accept the fact that
Scania buses are like that, something that we can't really
change. No point keep on complaining as I feel it is the product
problem and not the bus operators' problem, unless maintenance
issues is really so bad, as in the case for the ELBOS. If Scania
buses vibrations really pisses some of you people so badly, then
sent an email to Scania Sweden: http://www.scania.com/scania-group/contact/,
instead of just keep on ranting here.
Lastly, stop flaming here.
Impossible in the coming years.
We don't see Mercedes Benz developing any double deckers for
almost 2 decades and Scania K310UD is too expensive for our
operators.
if it were to be about being efficient and maximising profits and
all that corporate embargo, then the wise thing to do would be to
look at long-term running costs versus immediate price points.
based on information from people about the rubbish fuel economy of
the scanias, i don't think anyone's making a good choice by jumping
straight into the 'oh it's the cheapest, and it's light, so even if
MPG is rubbish the lightweight chassis counterbalances the
efficieny' thing.
that's not the way to do it.
besides, if it really was to be found in the near future, that
there's a defect in the buses, then we'll see a thousand buses
disappear from the roads in one day. not like i'm saying that
defects happen as commonly as people who can't aim properly in the
urinals, but it's possible.
