London United has invested in a series of Stertil Koni wireless mobile lifts to help maintain its high levels of service to over 155 million passengers.
A long history of product innovation has seen London United advance from carrying Londoners by horse-tram, electric tramway and omnibus to an impressive current fleet of 885 red London buses. The successful operation of such a large fleet means that vehicle reliability and availability are of paramount importance and the Stertil Koni lifts play a vital role.
The company's recent acquisition of wireless mobile column lifting equipment from Stertil Koni continues the company's long standing commitment to investment in proven, advanced technology and will help London United maintain the highest levels of service reliability.
Keen to evaluate the options available for garage lifting equipment, London United conducted an in-house assessment of products from leading manufacturers. After extensive testing, Stertil Koni's ST1073 wireless mobile column lifts were confirmed as the preferred product. The ST1073 won on speed of lifting, user friendliness and the number of lifting cycles per full charge.
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The original contract covered the supply of three sets of four ST1073 wireless mobile lifts which were installed at the company's Twickenham garage. However, once installed and in use, the exceptional performance and reliability of the ST1073 quickly led to an order being placed for an additional set of four identical lifts to support operations at London United's Fulwell garage.
Each ST1073 hydraulic mobile column lift provides a lifting capacity of 7,250kg and the overall capacity can be increased simply by adding more columns to the system, up to a maximum of 28 columns.
Stertil Koni mobile lifts are amongst the fastest in the world and the ST1073 lift's maximum lifting height of 1.85 metres is reached in just 70 seconds. The lift's unique synchronisation system ensures a smooth lifting and lowering cycle, even in the event of extremely uneven load distribution of vehicles to be lifted. Also, in the event of a power supply failure, the columns may be manually lowered in complete safety.
Robert Tarrant, Engineering Manager at London United's Twickenham Garage said, "I was very interested in the benefits of wireless lifts and wanted to be sure that we purchased the correct equipment. We therefore evaluated a number of leading products and the Stertil Koni mobile lifts out-performed the others on all counts. In particular we compared lifting and descent times and the number of lifts before they required charging.
"A deciding factor was the in-built safety features particularly the independent locking pawl, along with the ID-Key that is required to synchronise the lifts prior to use (as this eliminates unauthorised usage). Once installed, the benefits were self evident, so when our Fulwell depot required an additional set of lifts they came to Twickenham and assessed the lifts for themselves and consequently purchased an additional set of four."