Rosenbauer RT for the Nörvenich Fire Department in North Rhine-Westphalia

The municipality of Nörvenich in North Rhine-Westphalia has procured a Rosenbauer RT (Revolutionary Technology) for its volunteer fire department. Equally impressed with the future-oriented vehicle concept, they are now joining the ranks of customers such as the Berlin Fire Department, the Los Angeles Fire Department and the Dubai Civil Defence. The purchase contract was signed on 20 June at the world’s leading trade fair, Interschutz, and the vehicle will be delivered by the end of June 2023.

‘The RT is leading fire departments into the age of electric mobility in a sustainable way,’ says Andreas Zeller, Sales Director of Rosenbauer International AG, ‘and we are seeing more and more emergency response organizations around the world expressing an interest in this vehicle. We are particularly pleased that Nörvenich is the first volunteer fire department in Germany to opt for an RT, and this confirms the trend. We estimate that by 2025, there will already be 700 to 800 vehicles with alternative drives operational in Europe. The RT is setting the technological benchmark, as it is certainly the most mature and well-conceived solution and much more than just an electrified fire-fighting vehicle.’

More than electric

The RT combines everything that matters in firefighting operations: a highly ergonomic and safety-oriented vehicle architecture that, for example, turns the crew cab into a mobile command centre that can be accessed without barriers, an innovative control concept that allows the RT to be largely operated intuitively, comprehensive connectivity and therefore the networking of all resources relevant to the operation (people, vehicles, technology, information, data), as well as a future-proof drive and energy concept that allows fire departments to go into operation with zero local emissions, and protects the health of the emergency crews because more than 90% of all operations can be carried out without noise and pollution.

Oliver Hartlieb, chief of the Nörvenich volunteer fire department, is particularly delighted with the RT’s cab concept: ‘The conference seating arrangement makes it much easier for the emergency crews to communicate.’ He was also won over by the functionality of the air-suspended chassis, which allows the RT to be lowered at the operational site: ‘This makes it much easier to access the equipment stored in the superstructure.’ Last but not least, it was important for Oliver Hartlieb to ensure standard and fail-safe operation of the RT, which is guaranteed by the on-board range extender: ‘The diesel generator available as a secondary energy source provides the redundancy that we always want as a fire department,’ says the fire chief.

‘With the RT, our volunteer fire department, which is divided into nine firefighting units and covers 14 towns over an area of 66km², is getting much more than a fire truck with an alternative form of propulsion,’ says Timo Czech, mayor of the municipality of Nörvenich. ‘We are getting state-of-the-art technology that is ahead of its time in many ways. This helps us to build up our own experience at an early stage, both with regard to the drive and the many new solutions on the vehicle, which will be helpful to us in future purchases and concepts. I am also pleased that our fire department appreciates the fact that they are now trailblazers as well. I thank our municipal council and the fire chief, who have supported my proposal for the purchase of this vehicle from the very beginning. Thanks to public subsidies, the procurement has also become financially viable for the municipality of Nörvenich.’