At the end of June the Mercedes-Benz Bus and Coach Unit delivered the 1000th Mercedes-Benz Citaro urban bus to the Romanian bus operator Regia Autonoma de Transport Bucuresti (RATB). The symbolic handover of keys to the mayor of Bucharest, Oprescu Tbilder, was performed by Dr. Eckehard Stengel, Head of EvoBus Romania, at the grand opening of EvoBus Romania’s new location. EvoBus is a wholly owned subsidiary of Daimler AG.

"The opening of our new customer and service centre in Bucharest highlights our commitment to eastern Europe, and we are proud of the successes of our colleagues locally as well as the good sales performance and professional maintenance contracts," said Holger Suffel, Head of Sales at EvoBus.

Daimler Buses has been represented in Romania since April 2006 and has sold around 1200 buses there over the last three years. Daimler Buses has a market share of around 50% and is the clear market leader in buses.

For the Bucharest transport operator the 10,000th Mercedes-Benz Citaro in use will be 12 metres long and fitted with a Euro 4 BlueTec® engine and 27 seats. With this delivery Mercedes-Benz Bus and Coach unit is fulfilling the major order it received in 2007 for 500 Mercedes-Benz Citaro urban buses. The Romanian capital first ordered 500 Citaro urban buses back in 2005. The low-floor urban buses are manufactured at the EvoBus plants in Mannheim and Ulm.

The RATB fleet includes trams and trolley buses as well as a total of 1500 buses, 1000 of which are Mercedes-Benz Citaro urban buses. The Bucharest transport operator offers connections for both the city centre and rural areas on a total of 51 bus routes. In 2008 around 50 percent of the public transport in Bucharest was covered via bus connections.

One decisive criteria for the selection of the new EvoBus Romania location in Bucharest was providing better accessibility for customers. The premises covering 12.000 m² allow for more services and maintenance for Mercedes-Benz and Setra buses, such as 24-hour service. The after-sales area also offers professional driver and technical training for customers and service partners. A total of around 90 staff work at the new location.