An intense two-month testing phase has begun for 14 Yutong GTe14 tri-axle coaches recently delivered to Scottish scheduled coach operator Ember.
Testing commenced on 18 June. Between two and four of the new vehicles will replace existing Yutong TCe12 coaches on Ember’s Dundee-Glasgow and Dundee-Inverness routes on a rotating basis until all vehicles have been put through their paces. There is also pre-running on an Aberdeen service.
Ember describes the testing of the new vehicles, which is being undertaken to validate performance predictions, as a world-first. The coaches will be run 24-hours a day, undergoing several trips and charging sessions within every 24-hour period. If successful, all 14 of the coaches are expected to be put in service on conclusion.
Keith Bradbury, Ember co-CEO, describes the core aim of building up a set of real-world consumption figures to validate historic modelling data in a high utilisation environment. That includes validating 600kW charging speeds and ensuring “charging curves are as expected”. Conclusion of the testing period will allow Ember to scale up the fleet on the basis of real-world figures.
Completion of the testing phase will also determine Ember’s decision on committing to the GTe14 as vehicle of choice moving forward. Phase two of testing will be the addition of more GTe14s, doubling the capacity of specific services.
“We’re curious to see what the real world consumption figures of the GTe14 looks like relative to the TCe12, for which we have a huge amount of running data across all seasons, loading and weather conditions,” says Mr Bradbury. “We’re the first operator to run these vehicles at this intensity, and we are liaising with Yutong as it is also keen to see the data. Yutong has done a lot of work on modelling, thermal range and charging curves, and being able to build up that data set from real world operations validates the models.”
