ITALY The delivery of three 12m BYD ebuses to the municipality of Novara, close to Turin, means that the two cities now have 23 emission-free full-size buses in service, the largest such fleet in Italy.
The new vehicles were presented to the Mayor of Novara, Alessandro Canelli, and the Director of the operator SUN, Marzio Liuni, by Isbrand Ho, Managing Director of BYD Europe.
The purchase process began in 2014 when the Piedmont Region decided to allocate resources from the Ministry of the Environment for air quality improvement through the purchase of electrically powered buses.
SUN and GTT of Turin joined this program by allocating the necessary funds for the co-participation in the purchase of the vehicles – 20 units destined for GTT of Turin and three for SUN of Novara.
The latest vehicles can carry 83 passengers of whom 22 are seated and there’s space for a wheelchair. Because the buses do not have internal combustion engines they are very quiet and below the noise threshold typical of urban environments. For this reason they are equipped with a horn to signal the presence of the vehicle to pedestrians and cyclists.
The bus livery was created by the students of the School of Painting of the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin, which, coordinated by teacher Giuseppe Leonardi, have worked in synergy with the region creating a graphic design which reflects the spirit of the initiative.
