Allison says its automatic transmissions are now operating on refuse trucks in Sao Paulo State in Brazil.
The City of Bauru, through Emdurb (the Municipal Company of Urban and Rural Development of Bauru), has purchased ten new Mercedes-Benz 1729 refuse collection lorries with Allison fully automatic transmissions.
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Aoki, the Mercedes-Benz dealership in the city, won the bid and delivered the vehicles.
“The city of Bauru has an extremely rough topography with very steep slopes, constantly causing problems for refuse trucks equipped with manual transmissions,” said Aoki Bauru sales manager, Daniel Tiburcio.
“Given this reality, we were able to prove to the related authorities only a vehicle with a fully automatic Allison transmission would solve the refuse trucks’ issues of durability, maintenance and downtime.”
The Mercedes-Benz 1729 compactor model has a 15 m3 waste capacity. Through the electronic commands of the vehicles’ Allison 3000 Series fully automatic transmissions, any operational issues detected are displayed by a fault code on the digital display on the gear selector. It is also possible to read the transmission oil level through the display and be notified of the most suitable time for replacement of the transmission.
“Notably, the refuse disposal site for the city of Bauru is located 50km away,” added Tiburcio. “After the refuse has been collected in exhaustive stop-and-go driving conditions with many steep grades to overcome, the truck has to travel this long distance on the open road. The transmission must perform in two profoundly different traffic conditions.”
Aoki trained 22 drivers – two working shifts with ten drivers and other two substitute drivers – to enable the technical delivery of the vehicles.
The lorries were in operation by the end of April.
