Volgen has manufactured the 5000th bus at its facility in Dandenong, Victoria.
The bus body builder, the largest in Australia, delivered the Optimus Low-Floor Route Bus to Ventura Bus Lines. The event leads the company to come full circle, as the first bus ever made by Volgren, the VG001, is also owned by Ventury.
According to Volgren chief executive, Thiago Deiro, the milestone points to the manufacturing strategies employed by Volgren.
“This is a proud moment in our company’s long history. You don’t produce this many vehicles over this many years without dedicating yourself to manufacturing excellence and to providing operators with buses they can trust,” said Deiro.
While Volgren has implemented the latest technology in some of its buses, such as purely electric, battery powered buses, the VG001 was symbolic of an innovation of its time.
“This first Volgren bus – with more than 850,000 kilometres on the odometer and still going strong – is symbolic of what we have built our reputation on: reliability, quality, innovation and long-term value for our partners. It was the first aluminium bus ever built in Australia,” said Deiro.
Ventura, a bus operator which carries 32 million customers across Melbourne each year, highlighted how the partnership enables the best bus manufacturing to occur locally.
“This is a huge achievement for Volgren and we’re pleased to be a part of it, but not just for symbolic reasons. The Optimus low-floor bus is widely considered one of the best vehicles of its type in Australia and we’re always enthusiastic to bring another one into our fleet,” said Ventura managing director, Andrew Cornwall.