Stuttgart / Neu-Ulm. Joris Keymeulen is simply the best. The 51 year-old from Belgium took the top step on the podium at the 2019 “BusTech Challenge”. The internal competition for bus mechanics is held every two years by Daimler Buses. He managed to set himself apart from the other competitors from 17 European countries. In second place was Remo Glanzmann from Switzerland, while the bronze medal went to Robin Sonfors from Sweden. 

A total of 730 participants took part in the competition. The preliminary rounds were held in the summer of last year and this was already the fifth time the competition between the authorised Omniplus Service Points has been run in Europe. As part of the competition, the employees had to answer a list of online bus-related questions at their own location. Topics included the bus itself, maintenance and repair. At the final round in Neu-Ulm at the beginning of February, the national winners also demonstrated their practical skills. For example, the mechanics had to search for faults in the bus air conditioning system, find and eliminate the reason for a total failure of the electrical system and repair the automatic transmission of a city bus.