Tachoblog

Tachoblog’s favourite automatic gearbox manufacturer Allison Transmission is helping the city of Barcelona with its firm commitment to a sustainable future.

The city has placed Spain’s largest ever order for CNG trucks and all of the 300 natural gas vehicles, which will work for the environmental services department carrying out duties such as refuse collection and street cleaning, are fitted with Allison fully automatic transmissions. The public sector in Spain is increasingly opting for CNG vehicles due to their lower carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions.

Click below for more…

The new CNG vehicles form part of a 350-strong truck order to be managed by environmental service providers Cespa, CLD, FCC and Urbaser. Each company chose Allison to reduce operating costs, improve fuel consumption and optimise service to the citizens of Barcelona, and not just for the CNG-fuelled vehicles. Allison equips almost 85 percent of the order’s total heavy truck requirement, including diesel vehicles.

More than 50 different vehicle configurations have been developed for this large fleet, including various bodywork applications and facilities for rear, left or right side loading and vertical loading by automatic crane. The vehicles are extremely diverse in both size and capacity. Ranging from three to 32 tonnes, the fleet includes street cleaning trucks, large and small refuse trucks and service vehicles which collect loads from small refuse trucks at isolated points of the city in order to reduce trips to landfill.

The common denominator in this dazzling array of vehicles and equipment is the Allison automatic transmission. The 2500, 3000R and 3200R Series transmissions were chosen for their reliability, cost efficiency and driving convenience. Each Allison comes with a torque converter as standard for powertrain protection and superior performance.

This is an essential feature in tough applications, such as waste collection, with constant stops and starts, very often with heavily laden vehicles, and it can deliver high productivity, more efficient fuel consumption and significant cost reductions.

The incorporation of fourth generation electronic controls in each Allison transmission results in smooth and faster gear changes, greater fuel efficiency and enhanced powertrain reliability. Allison transmissions have hydraulic retarders, which afford greater driver control of the vehicle. This improves safety and minimises wear on brakes particularly in vehicles equipped with a CNG engine.

There are also clear maintenance advantages to owning and running an Allison transmission which translate into shorter downtime and greater productivity. Because the automatic transmission does not have a starting clutch, it eliminates repair work and makes life easier for fleet maintenance managers. Most of the companies involved in the Barcelona contract are currently preparing their preventive maintenance plans in cooperation with Allison. Maintenance costs will be minimised through the use of the synthetic oil, TranSynd (TES-295), which increases intervals between oil changes six-fold.

Allison automatic transmissions make driving easier by facilitating manoeuvrability and eliminating repetitive clutch depressions and gear-change movements. This reduces stress and fatigue, allowing drivers to focus entirely on waste collection and traffic conditions and preventing typical muscular ailments.

Finally, the city benefits from the use of these automatic transmissions. The Allison’s quiet helical gears, along with the fact that transmission and engine are calibrated to operate within optimal RPM parameters, means noise normally associated with manual transmission trucks, is significantly reduced.