On March 28, BEIQI FOTON officially delivered 40 units of 7-metre customized school buses to Riyadh Educational Service Agency in the Saudi Arabia capital, the vehicles will be used for daily commuting between primary and secondary school students’ residences and schools, and the service scope covers Riyadh and the surrounding areas, which is expected to guarantee the safe travelling needs of more than 1,000 students per day. This delivery marks a breakthrough for BEIQI FOTON in the Middle East education and travelling sector, and also becomes a new model for BEIQI FOTON to “match technology to market” and enhance the value of local customers.
Customer Endorsement, Prying the Potential of the Regional Market
The customer has been operating school buses in Saudi Arabia for nearly 30 years, and has been deeply involved in the formulation of school bus service standards in the country. Based on the deep insight into the local operation pain points, the customer has put forward strict requirements on the vehicle performance: it needs to adapt to the complex terrain around the Saudi capital, and meet the stable commuting under long-distance uphill and downhill conditions. The 7m school buses developed by BEIQI FOTON are equipped with FOTON Cummins 3.8L Euro 5 engines and ZF manual transmissions. By optimising the gradient parameters and customised rear axle ratios, the power output efficiency of the vehicles on steep slopes is significantly improved, which is recognised by the end-operators.
Full-scene Solutions, Building Closed-loop Operational Value
The high-temperature air conditioning system and dustproof and high-temperature-resistant interior components are specially developed for Saudi Arabia’s extreme climate to meet the high temperature, high heat, high dust and other extreme climatic environments, and to realise full life-cycle climate adaptability. In order to ensure the continuous improvement of customers’ operation experience, our company has innovatively constructed a “three-in-one” service guarantee system: setting up a full-time technical service team and implementing a full-process service tracking mechanism. Launching a strategic reserve mechanism of key spare parts in response to the operational needs of the batch of school buses and completing the Middle East warehouse pre-positioning in advance. Meanwhile, laying out two authorised service centres in the core urban areas of Riyadh to form a “7*24-hour emergency response circle + remote intelligent diagnostic system + preventive maintenance” for round-the-clock service, which can effectively guarantee the fleet’s attendance rate and operational stability.
This breakthrough in access to Saudi Arabia’s school bus market validates BEIQI FOTON’s “technology adaptation + service front” strategy of going overseas. In the future, BEIQI FOTON will promote new energy school buses and other commercial vehicle products in due course, providing an innovative “model” for the standardised and professional development of travel equipment in various industries such as education in Saudi Arabia. With the vehicles formally put into operation, BEIQI FOTON will jointly carry out operational data collection with customers, contributing Chinese wisdom to the upgrade of school bus safety standards in the Middle East.