Blekingetrafiken’s purchase of Chinese electric buses has not quite turned out to be the success they had hoped for. Recently, several of them have died during operation, causing delays and problems for customers.
Eduardo Morales, union safety representative and bus driver at Connect Bus, which operates on behalf of Blekingetrafiken, is one of those affected.
– You expect everything to work. It could be anything. A bus that dies is not good, he tells national radio.
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The employer says they are aware of two cases where buses have suddenly stopped working during operation, but according to Morales there have been significantly more cases than that.
Engineers on site
Mattias Sjöstedt, head of business area at Connect Bus, says it is important to report faults, adding that they have 140 buses running a total of about 30,000 kilometers per day.
– There is of course no certainty that something won’t go wrong on the roads, but the important thing is that we have procedures in place so we can bring the bus to the workshop to fix the issues, but also ensure traffic continues, he says.
Engineers from the Chinese company BYD have now arrived in Blekinge to assist and reprogram the buses.