Company aims to cultivate organic demand in OEM market
As a leading global supplier of fully automatic transmission systems for buses, Allison Transmission sees an optimistic growth for its products in penetrating the Indian bus market, more so with the growing demand for buses in the country.
The company has attended the last five editions of Busworld India, and once again reaffirmed its commitment towards the domestic bus industry with a vibrant display and live demonstrations of fully-automatic transmission (FAT) for bus applications at this year’s expo.
“This is a very important event, a suitable platform for us to demonstrate the value proposition of our products to target customers, including OEMs, STUs and private bus operators”, said Mr. Gek Heng Tan (GH), Director – Marketing, Asia Pacific region.
The company has been in the forefront of introducing FATs for city buses in the country almost a decade back, with a healthy population of buses running in the cities of Delhi, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad, to name a few. It is a stock supplier to bus makers like Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and JBM.
Asked about the market potentialities for automated transmission in Asia-Pacific, the Director replied that the developing markets in the region are embracing technologies in a big way, but the change does not come overnight.
“Acceptance of FATs requires greater awareness among end-users. In the Western markets, the shift happened in the early 1980s, in Japan a little later, while in China demand started picking up just last decade”, he added.
With South Asian markets facing heavy traffic congestions in cities, demand for comfortable and sustainable bus transportation enhances the appeal for fully-automatic bus transmissions.
In India, Allison Transmission claims to follow the market strategy of ‘Push and Pull’ to make the technological shift in buses happen. “Since the cumulative demand for automatic transmission remains low in the country, OEMs offer very few or no option for buyers to choose, as they go by volumes.
We are reaching out to fleets and end-users with product demonstrations, so as to woo them to ask for automatics as OE fitment”, Mr. Gek Heng Tan said.
The biggest volume segment for FATs in India right now is the intra-city transit bus application – both standard and low-floor configurations. “We are gradually moving towards the inter-city bus segment… we have befitting products to suit its requirements, and there is tremendous response for the industry as well”, he noted.
In the next few years, the company will embark on its next growth phase with its product expansion into the truck market.
“Trucks with FATs is where the market will be ultimately heading to, considering the quest for lower TCO and reduced downtime”, he added.
On technical service and customer support, Mr. Steven Chan, Director – Customer Support and Channel Management, Asia Pacific, said that the Indian network boasts over 8 dedicated dealers covering 3-4 States where buses with the company transmission are running.
“We continue to expand our network as the population expands so as to offer seamless and superior assistance to customers. Our dealers have even come up with special maintenance packages for fleets for long-term cost reduction in service”, he added.
Allison eyes private bus fleet operators
At the expo, Allison Transmission demonstrated benefits of fully-automatic transmission for inter-city buses to the audience. An SRS Travels-owned Ashok Leyland (standard floor) inter-city seater bus and a Tata Divo belonging to Nishnai Travels, Mumbai, gave free ride experience to the show visitors and media personnel. Both the buses were retro-fitted with Allison’s T180 and T280 (with retarder) models respectively.
The demonstrator buses were connected with on-board computers to show the observers real-time engine performance data. The 6-speed transmission exhibited no jerks during automated gear shifts, while the driver can stay focused on the road without distracting himself on vehicle response if gears are to be shifted manually.
Gear shifts happen at full throttle, hence acceleration seems greatly improved, while two overdrive gears (5th and 6th) can maintain the engine rpm as constant as possible, thus contributing to fuel economy. No clutch action is required, apparently.
The Managing Director of SRS Travels, Mr. K.T. Rajashekhara, in a statement in August, had said that his buses retro-fitted with Allison automatic transmissions have completed million kilometers without any unscheduled failures and breakdowns in a period of five years. This comprises of twenty Ashok Leyland inter-city buses belonging to the fleet, including two air-conditioned buses retro-fitted with the T270 model since 2013.
He claims that the automatic transmissions have improved the reliability and uptime of his buses, while offering significant comfort to the driver and passengers.
He also finds the technology as a pressing solution to retain drivers in the industry, while the fleets don’t have to depend completely on drivers’ practices to achieve optimum fuel efficiency.
Based on his experiences, Mr. Ajay Tarase of Nishnai Travels said that Allison systems bring improved fuel economy and uptime in long-distance duty cycles, while also saving notably on periodic service and clutch replacement required for manuals. Allison Transmission claims to have a wide range of products to suit all engine displacements and configurations that can be found in the Indian bus market.