In the following interview Mr. Drago Žalac (Head of Preparation of Vehicles Operation, LPP Company) reports on his experience about the implementation and evaluation of the Jet Master System in the public company Javno podjetje Ljubljanski potniški promet d.o.o. (LPP d.o.o.) in Ljubljana.
LPP Company
The most important task of the public company "Javno podjetje Ljubljanski potniški promet d.o.o. (LPP d.o.o.) (Ljubljana, Slovenia) is to provide safe, reliable and smooth-running of the public transport in the area of the entire Slovenian Capital City and municipality of Ljubljana as well as sixteen suburban municipalities. Our wish and goal is to make sure that buses will become the best alternative to private cars, so private vehicles can be removed from urban areas to ensure a healthy environment for future generations. To provide comfortable, safe and fast transport for Ljubljana's citizens as well as for those living in the suburban municipalities, it is necessary to work as a team and in coordination: this is the daily motto of the almost 1,000 employees of our company. By purchasing new, modern,air-conditioned, environment and disabled friendly buses, along with regular training of the drivers, optimisation of the schedules and many other projects and measures for sustainable mobility, we provide public transport services of increasing quality. Consequently, a growing number of people are deliberately opting for public transport in Ljubljana and its surroundings. Modernisation of the LPP city passenger transport fleet of 280 buses in the last five years has significantly contributed to comfortable traveling and simultaneously to an improved healthy living environment. Hundred new environment-friendly buses bought in recent years, meeting the Euro 5 or Euro 6 standards, among them 36 methane buses for a nicer and healthier environment, cleaner air and lower noise levels, will convince even the most zealous advocates of traveling by private cars in urban areas. By setting up a methane filling station with Energetika Ljubljana we also obtained ideal conditions for our methane fleet.
JET MASTER
The accumulation of dirt on an air-cooled condenser or liquid cooler forms an insulation layer, reduces energy efficiency and therefore increases the costs of power, maintenance and service. Additionally, the corrosion of the fins results in a reduction in the service life of your device. JetMaster as a patent-protected process for the intensive cleaning of sensitive fin surfaces and it acts gently and yet extremely powerfully. High performance nozzles bring compressed air and small quantities of pre-treated water to supersonic speed at low pressure.
1. Mr. Drago Žalac, more than a year ago you decided to use the JetMaster method for your business process. What is your opinion about the system today?
After more than a year of usage JetMaster in our process of cleaning bus coolers we can say it is reliable, easy for operation, very effective and that its operational costs are very low. Only compressed air and water are needed. The time we now need for the cleaning process is much shorter.
2. What reasons / motivation had your company for the introduction of the JetMaster process?
We really suffered a lot of damages on our bus coolers with the usage previous high pressure cleaners. Anyhow we knew that we need to clean the coolers periodically to keep them running and to prevent repairs and wear outs.
Therefore we wanted to introduce some device to clean coolers quickly, effectively and with easy to use performance.
3. Were there any obstacles you had to overcome?
Not really. After the presentation of performance and a one hour test cleaning we saw the effectiveness and with the results we really had no problems to persuade our decision makers within the company to implement the device.
4. What are the benefits for you from this type of cleaning compared to other cleaning methods?
Mostly we see the following benefits for us:
- no damages of coolers (fins) during the cleaning process
- no dismounting of coolers - we can clean even three in a row as originally mounted on the vehicles
5. Can you describe the results from your point of view compared to other cleaning methods?
We clean the coolers in the timeframe compared to other high pressure devices in the same time, but the cleaning quality is better and we are sure that the operator will not damage the cooler. That is one result we see for us. If we take into the account the cleaning without dismounting we can say that the time needed is not only three times shorter but even five time shorter or more. Or in other words: we clean all the coolers regularly (because we don't need to dismantle them).
6. Is there an impact on the points for improving quality and reliability of your bus traffic through using JetMaster?
We all know that dirty and blocked, congested coolers caused overheating of bus motors.
Especially this occurs in spring when there is a lot of pollen in the air due to tree, flowers and bush blooming. By use of the JetMaster process we have a higher availability of buses. This is especially important for us in rush hours and days with highly extensive traffic. We can clean more vehicles in an hour, too.
7. Do you have future plans with the process?
At the moment we use our standard bus wash premises for the cleaning of the coolers. But we think of the implementation of a special place, where we could clean only the coolers to optimize the process for us once more.
It might look a bit ambitious or out of the box thinking, but we plan to expand our business model by offer this service to other bus or truck owning companies (despite the fact that we are public company owned by the city of Ljubljana). We might get some additional income with offering this service on the market.
The interview was conducted by mycon GmbH, Germany.
LPP Company
The most important task of the public company "Javno podjetje Ljubljanski potniški promet d.o.o. (LPP d.o.o.) (Ljubljana, Slovenia) is to provide safe, reliable and smooth-running of the public transport in the area of the entire Slovenian Capital City and municipality of Ljubljana as well as sixteen suburban municipalities. Our wish and goal is to make sure that buses will become the best alternative to private cars, so private vehicles can be removed from urban areas to ensure a healthy environment for future generations. To provide comfortable, safe and fast transport for Ljubljana's citizens as well as for those living in the suburban municipalities, it is necessary to work as a team and in coordination: this is the daily motto of the almost 1,000 employees of our company. By purchasing new, modern,air-conditioned, environment and disabled friendly buses, along with regular training of the drivers, optimisation of the schedules and many other projects and measures for sustainable mobility, we provide public transport services of increasing quality. Consequently, a growing number of people are deliberately opting for public transport in Ljubljana and its surroundings. Modernisation of the LPP city passenger transport fleet of 280 buses in the last five years has significantly contributed to comfortable traveling and simultaneously to an improved healthy living environment. Hundred new environment-friendly buses bought in recent years, meeting the Euro 5 or Euro 6 standards, among them 36 methane buses for a nicer and healthier environment, cleaner air and lower noise levels, will convince even the most zealous advocates of traveling by private cars in urban areas. By setting up a methane filling station with Energetika Ljubljana we also obtained ideal conditions for our methane fleet.
JET MASTER
The accumulation of dirt on an air-cooled condenser or liquid cooler forms an insulation layer, reduces energy efficiency and therefore increases the costs of power, maintenance and service. Additionally, the corrosion of the fins results in a reduction in the service life of your device. JetMaster as a patent-protected process for the intensive cleaning of sensitive fin surfaces and it acts gently and yet extremely powerfully. High performance nozzles bring compressed air and small quantities of pre-treated water to supersonic speed at low pressure.
1. Mr. Drago Žalac, more than a year ago you decided to use the JetMaster method for your business process. What is your opinion about the system today?
After more than a year of usage JetMaster in our process of cleaning bus coolers we can say it is reliable, easy for operation, very effective and that its operational costs are very low. Only compressed air and water are needed. The time we now need for the cleaning process is much shorter.
2. What reasons / motivation had your company for the introduction of the JetMaster process?
We really suffered a lot of damages on our bus coolers with the usage previous high pressure cleaners. Anyhow we knew that we need to clean the coolers periodically to keep them running and to prevent repairs and wear outs.
Therefore we wanted to introduce some device to clean coolers quickly, effectively and with easy to use performance.
3. Were there any obstacles you had to overcome?
Not really. After the presentation of performance and a one hour test cleaning we saw the effectiveness and with the results we really had no problems to persuade our decision makers within the company to implement the device.
4. What are the benefits for you from this type of cleaning compared to other cleaning methods?
Mostly we see the following benefits for us:
- no damages of coolers (fins) during the cleaning process
- no dismounting of coolers - we can clean even three in a row as originally mounted on the vehicles
5. Can you describe the results from your point of view compared to other cleaning methods?
We clean the coolers in the timeframe compared to other high pressure devices in the same time, but the cleaning quality is better and we are sure that the operator will not damage the cooler. That is one result we see for us. If we take into the account the cleaning without dismounting we can say that the time needed is not only three times shorter but even five time shorter or more. Or in other words: we clean all the coolers regularly (because we don't need to dismantle them).
6. Is there an impact on the points for improving quality and reliability of your bus traffic through using JetMaster?
We all know that dirty and blocked, congested coolers caused overheating of bus motors.
Especially this occurs in spring when there is a lot of pollen in the air due to tree, flowers and bush blooming. By use of the JetMaster process we have a higher availability of buses. This is especially important for us in rush hours and days with highly extensive traffic. We can clean more vehicles in an hour, too.
7. Do you have future plans with the process?
At the moment we use our standard bus wash premises for the cleaning of the coolers. But we think of the implementation of a special place, where we could clean only the coolers to optimize the process for us once more.
It might look a bit ambitious or out of the box thinking, but we plan to expand our business model by offer this service to other bus or truck owning companies (despite the fact that we are public company owned by the city of Ljubljana). We might get some additional income with offering this service on the market.
The interview was conducted by mycon GmbH, Germany.
