Volvo 2010 Annual Report Download - page 55

Download and view the complete annual report

Please find page 55 of the 2010 Volvo annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.

Page out of 154

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • 34
  • 35
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • 41
  • 42
  • 43
  • 44
  • 45
  • 46
  • 47
  • 48
  • 49
  • 50
  • 51
  • 52
  • 53
  • 54
  • 55
  • 56
  • 57
  • 58
  • 59
  • 60
  • 61
  • 62
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • 66
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70
  • 71
  • 72
  • 73
  • 74
  • 75
  • 76
  • 77
  • 78
  • 79
  • 80
  • 81
  • 82
  • 83
  • 84
  • 85
  • 86
  • 87
  • 88
  • 89
  • 90
  • 91
  • 92
  • 93
  • 94
  • 95
  • 96
  • 97
  • 98
  • 99
  • 100
  • 101
  • 102
  • 103
  • 104
  • 105
  • 106
  • 107
  • 108
  • 109
  • 110
  • 111
  • 112
  • 113
  • 114
  • 115
  • 116
  • 117
  • 118
  • 119
  • 120
  • 121
  • 122
  • 123
  • 124
  • 125
  • 126
  • 127
  • 128
  • 129
  • 130
  • 131
  • 132
  • 133
  • 134
  • 135
  • 136
  • 137
  • 138
  • 139
  • 140
  • 141
  • 142
  • 143
  • 144
  • 145
  • 146
  • 147
  • 148
  • 149
  • 150
  • 151
  • 152
  • 153
  • 154

Each year, 2 billion people fly all over the world. This means high demands on
the maintenance of the airports, especially when the snow falls. In less than
ten minutes, Volvo’s specially-built articulated haulers clear the runways at
Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport, which has never had to close because of the snow.
When the snow and cold temperatures take a steady grip the affect on
our airports is obvious. During early 2010 Frankfurt Airport, the third
largest in Europe, was forced to cancel more than 200 flights in one single day.
At Arlanda Airport just north of Stockholm, aircraft take off and land
almost every second minute round the clock. More than 18 million people
travelled to or from Arlanda in 2008 and more than 200,000 tons of
cargo was handled by the airport. During the winter months, heavy
snowfall is not unusual and even if flights are occasionally delayed
owing to particularly heavy snowfall, the airport has never once been
shut down by snow since its opening back in 1962.
To keep the airport moving, a team of 130 people work with tackling
snow and ice in the high season. They are aided by a wide-ranging fleet
of Volvo products featuring specially built accessories. The most advanced
vehicles are the PSB machines. PSB stands for Plow, Sweep and Blow,
and they are based on Volvo Construction Equipment articulated hauler.
At the front of the vehicle is a 7.3 meter wide plow that shovels most of
the snow off the tarmac. It is followed by a brush that sweeps away snow
and ice, and the job is rounded off by a blower which with an extraction
speed of 130 m/s blows away the rest. The system is also in operation at,
among others, Brussel’s airport Zaventem.
By driving nine such machines alongside each other, it is possible to
clear a 3.3 kilometer long and 45 meter wide runway in less than ten
minutes.
“This makes us the world’s fastest airport snow-plow team,” says Ste-
fan Sundkvist, field coordinator at Arlanda Airport.
In the fleet, there is also a number of Volvo wheel loaders that are
equipped with snow-plows, sweepers and snow blowers in the winter. At
an airport, safety is absolutely everything. That is why the snow “sweep-
ers” as they are called in the language of international aviation are an
integrated part of traffic planning and are in constant contact with the
control tower. Just as an aircraft gets its take-off and landing times, so too
do the sweepers get a slot to clear the snow and ice off the tarmac.
“We have a total of 250,000 square meters to clear from snow and ice,
at the same time as the aircraft have to continue taking off and landing.
There’s absolutely no room for driving around haphazardly – all the traffic
has to be controlled and planned down to the most minute detail,” says
Stefan Sundkvist.
51