VDL Citea SLFA Electric wins Red Dot Award
The VDL Citea SLFA Electric has won the 2017 Red Dot Award. The Red Dot Award is a prestigious international design prize conferred annually by the ‘Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen’ in Essen, Germany. More than 5,500 entries from 54 countries were submitted. The VDL Citea Electric won the award in the ‘Product Design’ category. The jury was unanimous in its praise of the innovative design of the articulated VDL Citea SLFA, the electric public transport of the future that is fully operational today. ''The Red Dot winners have adopted the correct design strategy. They have recognised that a good design and economic success go hand in hand. The conferral of an award by the highly critical Red Dot jury is a sign of excellent design quality and represents a successful design policy”, says Professor Peter Zec, the founder and CEO of the Red Dot Award.
The Red Dot Award for the VDL Citea SLFA Electric will be presented on 3 July 2017.
Design of the future
The Dutch design agency Vanderveer Designers has for years played a major part in designing the VDL Bus & Coach product range. The challenge for the Citea SLFA Electric lay in combining a socially acceptable design with the product’s innovative and futuristic character. The result is an uncluttered, very modern-looking bus. Shielded wheels reinforce the friendly appearance. A spacious interior with soft-looking, rounded moulded elements and optimised passenger flow increases travelling pleasure. Large glass elements affording excellent views of the surrounding area and a state-of-the-art digital screen in the dashboard, displaying all the information required by the driver, improve safety for both driver and passengers.
VDL Citea Electric
The modular construction of the Citea range means that there are many electric variants with customised solutions in the fields of design, powertrains and battery packs, putting VDL Bus & Coach at the forefront of the transition to efficient zero-emissions public transport systems. Many customers opt for one-stop shopping. Not only the bus, but also implementation, maintenance and delivery of charging infrastructure and energy are provided by VDL. By doing this VDL Bus & Coach is contributing actively to a cleaner environment, lower energy consumption and a quieter and healthier living environment.
Successful operations
The award-winning VDL Citea SLFA Electric is deployed on line 133 in Cologne, the first fully electric bus line in Germany. In Eindhoven the largest electric bus fleet in Europe is currently in operation, with 43 electric Citeas. On some lines the buses operate so often that they are more like trams. These high-frequency lines go to key destinations in Eindhoven, such as Eindhoven Airport and the High Tech Campus. For the Amstelland-Meerlanden concession in the province of North Holland, VDL Bus & Coach is to deliver no fewer than 100 Citeas SLFA Electric.
Valkenswaard, April 2017