Hubli based VRL Travels, one of the biggest bus travel operators in South India recently picked up a lot of new Volvo B9R multi-axle buses. The last we heard, they purchased 8 of these, all in yellow color, with numberings (to identify the buses) in the form of alphabets.
I recently took their Mumbai to Bangalore B9R for my trip to Davanagere from Pune. This bus leaves Sion at 3pm, reaching Katraj at7pm. Though the bus arrived on time, it just stood there for 45mins, putting in courier boxes to be delivered in Bangalore. This was very irriating.
The bus however is the epitome of luxury travel in India. On the way, I even sat at the co-driver's seat, chatting with the driver about the new features. As the bus was new, Volvo had electronically controlled the top speed to 100km/h. The B9R has a cruise control in addition to height adjustment and traction control too. The driver was making full use of the cruise control and cruising at 100km/h. Only on downhill sections was the bus going above 100km/h. I was told, once the engine has run-in properly, the cruise control will be removed and the bus will easily do 120km/h.
The Katraj (Pune) to Davanagere trip, around 580km, was done in 9 hours including a dinner break and a fuel stop. I paid Rs 950 for the ticket (Pune-Bangalore is Rs 1,000). Overall, a satisfying trip with the only issue being the long wait at Katraj.
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Read more about the Volvo B9R HERE
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Friday, February 19, 2010
VRL travels introduces new Volvo B9R multi-axle buses
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the best part i love in volvos is the driver area. I think it is volvo was the first in india to give importance to driver seat and dashboard (More attractive than car). The dashboard console actually makes the driving person more satisfactory and proud of the work he does.
Travelled many times in college tour, office tour they would hire a SUPER DELUXE bus which actually has good seating, comfortable suspension but the driver area... it is typical indian desi style. The wire seat, toothbrush like horn switch, the speedometers are placed in a awkward manner and they use anchor switches for interior lights :), snake like designed gear rod etc., etc.
After Volvo everyone copied the same pattern of it (including tata) front hanging rear view mirrors, slidein passenger door (before that it was slideout). In Prakash Coach ac buses we can see that they followed the same curve window glasses like in Mark-2. And in tata buses for generations they used only their tata sumo danger lights. After volvo succeeded in the luxury market, tata rushingly launched the tata globus which was a huge flop and when they announced hispano, mercedes launched new bus and when they manufactured hispano volvo launched multi axle and when they started selling hispano mercedes benz started multi axle buses oops...3 axle buses. And our good old ashok leyland is still starting its iBUS. This is the state of our poor indian commercial vehicle manufacterers ;( .
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