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GVU Endorsement in English

In may 2004, management of the Vehicle Maintenance Department of the City of Utrecht's Public Transportation Corporation were very enthusiastically presented with an opportunity to save fuel, reduce emissions and extend periodic filter change intervals. In summary a proposal that would be beneficial for our bottom line (fuel savings), the environment (particulate and gaseous emissions) and filter maintenance intervals. We would realize all of this by simply installing a technical "aid", called an Algae-X 500, in the fuel line of our company buses.

Suspicious as most engineers would be, and having been confronted with all kinds of "technical wizardry"in the past, we needed to first get clear answers to our questions from Mr. Hans Tieland, the Algae-X company representative and even that left us with several more or less relevant and unanswered questions. Never the less, we decided to take a closer look at this opportunity and equip five two-car Volvo buses. (B10MTHD 102 KB) In cooperation with Mr. Tieland we very closely monitored the performance of these vehicles.

To prevent triggering any changes in driving behavior, we did not inform our drivers that this equipment had been installed. After the evaluation period it appeared that we had realized a fuel savings of 7.3%. Even then we had our doubts about the functioning of this equipment and asked for backup and explanation by someone from the factory in America , who was flown in to in more detail explain the technology incorporated in the "device".

Still not entirely convinced, our company decided to do another evaluation with a much larger number of buses. We made installations in 10 Volvo double-car buses (engine type TDH 102 KB), 10 Van Hool standard buses with DAF engines (engine type PE 270) en 10 Van Hool triple-car DAF powered buses (engine type PE300). We very thoroughly monitored these 30 vehicles and their measured performance. After the Algae-X installation and evaluation period on these thirty buses, we had again realized a fuel savings of 7.13%.

It was not because of our "sentiments" or the "technical explanation", but simply the registration "hard (data) facts" that has lead to our company's decision to directly this year (2005) install Algae-X on all our fleet buses equipped with diesel engines. The realized savings will pay back the investment within half a year.