Mercedes Benz

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

Stuttgart/Mannheim, Germany, May 20, 2011

A substantial reduction in running costs was one of the clear specifications for the development of the new Citaro. An ambitious objective, as the Citaro was already an exceptionally economical urban bus as it was. Development work focused on the maintenance costs. With the launch of the new model, the maintenance intervals for the automatic transmission and rear axle have now been extended from 120,000 km to 180,000 km. The smaller details help to cut costs too: the air intake for ventilating the driver’s cab is now fitted with larger filters, which have longer replacement intervals.


Risk of damage from minor knocks greatly reduced

The repair of the typical minor damage sustained by urban buses in hectic traffic also generates costs, however. This was another point the developers turned their attention to. The front overhang features shoe-shaped scuffing protectors made from glass-fibre-reinforced plastic with a bolt-on, replaceable design. These protect the hem profiles of the bus when drawing into bus stops or swinging out over embankments, as can occur on rural-service routes, for example. The flexible bumper corners made from elastic glass-fibre-reinforced plastic on the rear bumper and wheel arches also help to lower repair costs.

LED lighting reduces power consumption and lasts longer

The numerous LED lights on both the inside and the outside of the new Citaro bring about a noticeable reduction in power consumption. They furthermore generally last for as long as a bus’s service life, largely doing away with the need to carry out tedious, time-consuming minor jobs like replacing faulty bulbs for the whole of the Citaro’s lifecycle.

Numerous other details likewise help to further reduce the amount of maintenance work required. There is now a sensor to measure the battery’s voltage, for instance, which works together with a controller to keep the voltage at a consistently high level, increasing battery life significantly. The capacity of the windscreen washer reservoir behind the front fascia has been increased from 8 to 20 litres as part of the model change, reducing to a minimum the frequency with which the washer fluid has to be topped up.