Harare- AVM Africa (Pvt) Ltd has embraced world class technology and developed a prototype 120-seater bus to provide the most cost-effective solutions on busy routes.
The effectiveness of the bus was demonstrated in Harare Thursday at event that was graced by Industry and Commerce Minister Sithembiso Nyoni and government senior officials.
The new mode can be built within a month and carrries 120 passengers at once, – 20 seated and 100 standing with two exits, at the front and back.
This development eases transport woes to urban commuters who were relying on mushika-shika.
Other attributes of the bus are morden hangers for the standing passengers, and there is ample room for those standing.
Minister Nyoni hailed AVM Africa for their innovation which will reduce importation cost of buses.
Intrestingly,last week Zupco flighted a tender where the company invited bidders for the importation of 500 buses.
“The Government would love to see every sector of the economy grow including transport, so that we don’t need to import buses”
“In Zimbabwe, we have three companies that are manufacturing buses and AVM is one of them and we are encouraging them to come on board as we want to avoid importing things that we can make.
“It is amazing that Zimbabwe is still importing things that it can make and as a ministry, we are saying step by step we must stop importing things we can make ourselves and buses are part of that and today we are seeing a prototype of what we can do,” said Minister Nyoni.
AVM managing director Jacob Zvainairo Kupa, said the new design will create more employment in both ways and will also ferry more people than other buses. The cost per customer was reduced since the 120 passengers would all use just one engine and drive train.
“This creates employment in the manufacturing side and also the supply side. These buses will help in terms of transporting people especially during the peak hours as it will carry 120 people at once,” he said.
He said the turn around time for production was little hence giving room for more buses in a short period.
“In terms of production, it will take us 22 days to produce one bus, and we are looking forward to produce more this year alone.
“Currently we are waiting for the launching of this bus then after that production of more buses will start.”
The bus was designed by Abigail Ziso who said she came up with the concept to cater for the transport needs of the growing number of urban commuters.
“The idea that made me design this bus was to at least have a bus that would be able to accommodate a lot of people as you can see in Harare after working hours a lot of people wanting to go home were not accommodated by the shortage of buses we were having,” she said.
“And to do so was to have a bus that accommodates more standing passengers 100, and less seated passengers 20.”
