Festival Travel, one of Scotland’s leading coach hire companies, has specified a set of Stertil Koni wireless mobile column lifts as part of a major investment in upgrading its workshops at Inverkeithing in Fife.
As a family-owned coach hire company, Festival Travel provides up to 70 seater coaches for all types of local, UK and European travel. The company’s fleet of 20 vehicles comprises the safest school coaches featuring three point seatbelts and onboard CCTV. All coaches are also disability (DDA) compliant and feature a number of driver aids including lane assist, brake assist, ABS and EBS traction control. In addition, the entire fleet is R66 rollover compliant and conforms to the latest Euro 6 emission standards.
The company’s workshop operates eight hours a day, five days a week with engineers undertaking a full range of inspection, maintenance, servicing and repair work. With a firm commitment to ensuring the reliability of its fleet, Festival Travel has a programme of scheduled servicing which sees up to four coaches a week brought into the workshop. In order to cope with this level of demand, the company decided to upgrade and modernise its workshop which now benefits from a set of four Stertil Koni wireless mobile column lifts, type ST1075FWA-4.
Wireless connectivity
Each mobile column in the set provides a lifting capacity of 7.5 tonnes which means that the combined capacity of the four columns is an impressive 30 tonnes. To cater for engineers of all heights, the ST1075FWA-4 provides a maximum lifting height of 1.85 metres which is reached in just 75 seconds. Also, each column is fitted with the eBright smart control system which enables workshop staff to operate the columns individually, in pairs or in any other configuration from a single location.
Incorporating wireless mesh network connectivity and full-colour touch screen consoles, the eBright smart control system has been designed and developed to simplify operation by providing maximum visual information about every lifting operation – all at the fingertips of the workshop engineers. For added safety and performance, the eBright smart control system also shows how many columns in the set are being used, plus the battery status of each column.
Long-life deep cycle batteries power the lifts for at least a week on average before recharging is necessary. Importantly, the batteries can then be charged overnight via a 230V single phase supply. With no cables on the workshop floor, the risk of tripping is removed, providing valuable health and safety benefits and, with no power supply necessary, the system can be used safely inside or outdoors.
Reduced set-up time
The absence of power and communication cables means that set-up time is drastically reduced thereby making the system fully operational much more quickly. Significantly, the lift’s synchronisation system ensures a smooth lifting and lowering cycle, even in the event of extremely uneven load distribution.
Festival Travel’s Owner, John Campbell, is delighted with the performance of the new lifts.
He said: “As a company, we have been consistently successful, not only in supporting Scotland’s continuing tourist boom but also in our operations throughout Europe. With a sustained increase in demand, we realised that we had to invest in improving our workshop equipment and the Stertil Koni lifts are invaluable. They are proving to be smooth, efficient and reliable. Our engineers appreciate the adjustable forks that speed up their work cycles, which are further shortened by being able to operate all four lifts from any one of the columns using the eBright control system.”
