Investigation of routes after bus chaos this winter ready – Greater Oslo

The harsh winter was a triggering factor, but not a cause in itself. This is shown in the investigation report after the winter’s bus chaos, which was published on Friday at 1pm. Norconsult has investigated Ruter and points to three main causes: Insufficient winter maintenance of the roads Incorrectly calculated energy consumption Problems with the charging infrastructure Norconsult also points out that the causes themselves did not trigger the chaos this winter, but because that everything happened at the same time. In addition, they point to a number of factors that also contributed to the delays and adjustments: The buses’ driving characteristics Bad tires Lack of preparedness for winter days Insufficient driver training Technical faults on old buses Cecilie Jahr presented Norconsult’s investigation report on Friday afternoon. Photo: Olav Juven / news – The conclusion is that winter was not unique. And such winters must be expected in the coming years as well, said Cecilie Jahr, project manager at Norconsult, when she presented the report. The actual procurement of new electric buses also receives criticism. Poor backup solutions The buses were electrified on a large scale without making sure that they would actually work in winter. – Contracts with only electric buses were quickly introduced. Quality and regularity have not been given enough weight in the tenders, the report states. – Was the bus park electrified too quickly? – We do not think that electrification has gone too fast. What we see is that there have not been good enough backup solutions for those cases where the technology has not worked for its purpose, says Jahr. Extreme cold and snowfall caused major problems and at times paralyzed all bus traffic in Oslo and Bærum. The travelers were left freezing at the stops in the snow, cold and wind. It was the owners who asked Ruter to initiate an external investigation. Spant on flat land Oslo municipality and Akershus county council wanted to know what went wrong when 25,000 departures were canceled in January alone. And not least what could have been done to prevent the chaos and how to avoid the same thing happening in the future. The electric buses could not cope with the cold and ran out of power. The buses got stuck in the snow, and in Oslo articulated buses were left spinning on the smooth even on flat ground. The 20 bus spins in Kirkeveien at Marienlyst on Wednesday. PHOTO: SVEIN OVE HANSLI Unibuss In retrospect, much has been said about the bus company that struggled the most, namely Unibuss. They were already in financial trouble. The crisis was not improved by Ruter threatening large fines because Unibuss failed to deliver in accordance with the contract. Large parts of the fines have since been waived as part of the work to save Unibuss from bankruptcy. Published 14.06.2024, at 13.06 Updated 14.06.2024, at 2 p.m



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