EROAD’s electronic road user charges solution is now being rolled out across New Zealand’s largest privately owned bus and coach fleet.
Ritchies has begun installing EROAD Ehubo units in around 50 of its Auckland school buses. All new Ritchies vehicles are being fitted with Ehubos as standard and the company plans to deploy the system into the balance of its nationwide fleet of 1000+ buses and coaches.
Director Andrew Ritchie, who is also president of the Bus and Coach Association of New Zealand, said the company made the decision after trialling the solution in its Auckland fleet and seeing how committed EROAD was to continual development of its product to meet client requirements, such as driver monitoring.
Ritchies has passenger contracts that include monitoring requirements and EROAD’s comprehensive suite of driver behaviour tools will make compliance easier. It will also simplify RUC purchase, he said.
“Buying RUC for our buses in remote areas is a laborious process at the moment and EROAD’s system solves that. We’ll also use it for our service and maintenance programme, since we can schedule servicing by distance.
“The system has so many benefits for us; you can’t narrow it down to one. I’d be very surprised if many bus and coach operators didn’t adopt it.”
EROAD CEO Steven Newman said implementation of its ERUC solution into a major bus and coach fleet is an important milestone. “We’re delighted to have the opportunity to provide Ritchies with tools that simplify compliance and improve public safety,” he said.