ZF connecting bus fleets

ZF has launched ZF Bus Connect to cater to the needs of bus fleet operators. As an advanced fleet management tool, it claims ZF Bus Connect enables public transport or private bus operators to enhance and improve efficiency and performance of their fleets:

• Safety: Geofencing and monitoring of driver’s behaviour to detect dangerous bus driving situations to prevent accidents and to protect against theft.
• Efficiency: Live data evaluation on a per-bus basis allows optimisation of driving and route plans and improves fuel consumption.
• Uptime: Predictive remote detection of damages or wear and tear of consumable items compatible with real-world bus configurations as well as diagnosis and secure “over the air” updates to reduce downtime.

ZF Bus Connect is developed for city buses and coaches with both electric and combustion engines or hybrid systems also in a mixed fleet. The user can check every aspect of the vehicle, including live view of vehicle locations in real-time, observe current energy or fuel consumption, check the status of battery charge or maintain status of the vehicles parts, brake wear and other system messages.

“With ZF Bus Connect we are helping the bus operators with their difficult change to all-electric fleets,“ explained Florian Freund, responsible for the ZF Bus Connect development. “With the power of data-analytics of in-vehicle data we are helping operators to manage their fleet efficiently by reducing the energy or fuel consumption whilst giving a clear overview to the CO2 footprint of the fleet.”

ZF Bus Connect digital solution covers three areas: The On-Board Unit in the vehicle, the cloud, and the web-based portal for data analytics. Fleet operators have the possibility to purchase this all-in-one solution from ZF as a package or to connect to the cloud solution with their own compatible On-Board Unit and access the information via the portal as a third-party solution.

Based on the know-how of ZF’s current bus connectivity solution supporting over 10,000 buses worldwide, ZF has developed the ZF Bus Connect digital solution. To date, five fleets have converted to the new generation of solution, according to the company.