Ready for recovery: MCI provides tools to clean and disinfect motor coaches, protect returning riders and drivers

At MCI, passenger care has always been Priority No. 1.

Over the past several weeks, MCI’s engineering and field support teams and colleagues from sister company NFI Parts have been meeting with suppliers, talking with customers and serving on industry task force committees. As a result, MCI has been providing guidance, establishing best practices in cleaning, disinfecting, distancing and other protection protocols to share with its customers.

These efforts have produced the following resources for motor coach operators available on MCI’s website. They include:

NFI Parts Clean & Protect Product Guide

NFI Parts’ Clean and Protect Product Guide offers the most requested product for most MCI models with focus on next-level cleanliness and virus-transmission mitigation solutions. The guide consolidates current MCI and NFI Parts options for safe and successful operations organizing them under these four pillars:

• Distancing: Products that enable the driver to isolate from passengers and passengers to isolate from one another.
  • Options include high driver shields as well as partitions to protect drivers.
• Disinfecting: Products that kill viruses, bacteria, etc. on hard surfaces and in the air.
  • For example, hard to find fogging systems for maximum disinfecting effectiveness are now available.
• Air Quality: Products that reduce unwanted airborne particulates, viruses and bacteria.
  • On MCI coach models, the HVAC system circulates in fresh, outside air every 10 minutes.
  • Air recirculated through an anti-microbial MERV 8 rated filter media removes respiratory droplets and kills pathogens.
• PPE: Products that are considered “personal protective equipment” such as face masks and hand sanitizer, along with dispensers.

Please read NFI Parts’ White Paper guide on these four pillars found online here.

“One of the things MCI has been doing in collaboration with NFI Parts is to help evaluate what is effective against COVID-19, what helps meet CDC guidance, what is available, is it financially and operationally viable, and will it inspire passengers to ride,” said Brent Maitland, MCI Vice President of Pre-Owned Coach, Product Planning and Marketing. “The NFI Parts team has been working diligently to develop these solutions, advising operators and quickly meeting their demands.”

Maitland points to the increased use of UV-C lights mounted in the HVAC compartment to help kill pathogens and driver barriers available through NFI Parts. “These can either be installed by the owner, at MCI Service Center locations or on models as they come through the MCI production line,” he said. “Still, the most effective measures are found in CDC’s guidance. Handwashing, distancing, wearing a mask and cleaning common touch barriers, these procedures remain part of the guidance. Our goal is to have products and tools that support operators’ efforts.”

Find NFI Parts Clean and Protect Product Guide here.

MCI’s new Coach Disinfecting Protocol Checklist designed for operator use, too

Following coach-cleaning and maintenance procedures practiced at MCI Service Centers as well as guidelines from the CDC and Health Canada, MCI has created a comprehensive checklist for keeping motor coaches clean and sanitized in most operating situations including short movements on lots, pre-trip preparations and end-of-day maintenance.

“We’ve created this list in a template format so operators can edit it for their own use with specific practices required by their own maintenance and driving teams and as a training tool,” said Brent Danielson, MCI Director of Product Planning and Sales Engineering. “The checklist also provides Clean-In/Clean-Out touchpoints that are now necessary as COVID-19 precautions continue.”

You’ll find the checklist here.

Communicate cleaning practices with MCI’s Extreme Clean Commitment Toolkit

Communications will be very important as passengers return. To help operators share their enhanced cleaning practices with customers, MCI has created the Extreme Clean Commitment Toolkit to share information on enhanced cleaning procedures, products and equipment that will optimize passenger and driver protection in the coming months.

The toolkit, found here, offers outreach templates ready to use or customize:

• An enhanced cleaning checklist for website use
• A sample customer e-blast summarizing enhanced cleaning practices
• A sample press release to promote those practices with local media or on social media

“These are templates and recommendations customers can use and make their own,” said Maitland, “We’ve made these tools available directly downloadable from our website.”

MCI Webinar: Clean, Disinfect, Protect

For operators wanting additional guidance, MCI Academy – MCI’s training division –has a video replay of its Clean, Disinfect and Protect June 2 and 3 webinar, which reviews optimal cleaning practices and the latest advice for customers restarting their fleets. The video replay is now archived online via the MCI Academy’s Learn Management System (LMS) course code 19.111. If you don’t have an LMS account, please email [email protected] to register.

About NFI

With 9,000 team members operating from more than 50 facilities across ten countries, NFI is a leading independent global bus manufacturer providing a comprehensive suite of mass transportation solutions under brands: New Flyer® (heavy-duty transit buses), Alexander Dennis Limited (single and double-deck buses), Plaxton (motor coaches), MCI® (motor coaches), ARBOC® (low-floor cutaway and medium-duty buses), and NFI Parts™. NFI buses and motor coaches incorporate the widest range of drive systems available including: clean diesel, natural gas, diesel-electric hybrid, and zero-emission electric (trolley, battery, and fuel cell). In total, NFI now supports over 105,000 buses and coaches currently in service around the world. NFI common shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol NFI. News and information are available at www.nfigroup.com, www.newflyer.com, www.mcicoach.com, www.arbocsv.com, www.alexander-dennis.com, and nfi.parts.

About MCI

Motor Coach Industries (MCI) is North America’s public and private market motor coach leader, building the J4500 (the industry best-seller for 14 consecutive years), the all-new 35-foot J3500 model, and the workhorse D-Series including the breakthrough ADA-accessible MCI D45 CRT LE Commuter Coach offering lower dwell times. MCI will add battery-electric propulsion in 2020. With nearly 30,000 MCI coaches on the road, MCI also provides maintenance, repair, 24-hour roadside assistance, parts supply through NFI Parts, and technician training through the industry’s only Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) accredited MCI Academy.

For media inquiries, please contact:
Lindy Norris
P: 320.406.3386
[email protected]

For investor inquiries, please contact:
Stephen King
P: 204.224.6382
[email protected]