KPTC
Kuwait
company website

KPTC was established in 1962 and for a long time had a monopoly on bus transport in the country. It began as a public-private partnership, 50% owned by the government and by the private sector, but in 1979 the government bought out the private sector each. It owns a fleet of city and intercity buses (around 650 in 1985, 400 in 2004) and a fleet of contract buses (around 1575 in 1985). The latter are used as school buses and are on lease to various government agencies. KPTC has an interesting fleet history, which can be divided into several periods. The Iraqi occupation and the Gulf War of course had its impacts on the company and the fleet. Since 2002 the privately owned Citybus company has been competing with KPTC and has taken over a large part of the market. KPTC’s public transport services have been dwindling and there has been no fleet renewal since around 2007. The contract and school bus sectors form an important part of KPTC’s activities, with school bus fleets renewed every three years. Currently (beginning of 2018) in public service are the Mercedes-Benz -MCV buses series 4502-4643, , some Daewoo BV120MA series 7738-7803 and a number of Daewoo BH090.

In broad lines the fleet history is divided as follows (see also fleet list below):

1962-ca 1975: Mercedes-Benz O321H, probably with Geeek Biamax bodywork, Ikarus 66 (181 vehicles), 630 (1 vehicle) and 311 (12 vehicles) between 1964-1970, Büssing Senator and Mercedes-Benz O302 around 1970.

ca 1975-ca 1990: 434 (numbers 3000-3433) Mercedes-Benz O305 and 100 (numbers 4000-4099) Ikarus 190.03 buses to the German VOV design, and some 700 Ikarus 200-series buses of various models (series 5000), delivery of which continued after the war. Many of these vehicles were lost in the war. Also delivered were 50 Leyland Atlantean -Northern Counties doubledeckers (series 7005-7054). A series of German Mercedes-Benz O405 buses delivered in 1989-1990 completely vanished during the war/occupation.

For the contract fleet Indian TATA buses were bought. Small buses were Mercedes-Benz O309 and Renault -Borsani, also for the contract fleet and school buses.

During the 1980’s a large number of prototypes was purchased, among which DAF, CBM, Renault and Volvo.

from ca 1990 onwards: already in 1989 the first new Volvo’s, series 6000, were delivered, part of which were lost during the occupation/war. Deliveries of several models of Volvo buses and coaches continued until around 2005, most with Brazilian Marcopolo and (later) Busscar bodywork. After some more 200-series models, Ikarus delivered two 400-model prototypes and a small series of the new Alfa model between 1993-1995. Mercedes with Turkish, Brazilian and, the last series, Egyptian MCV bodywork were added to the fleet until around 2006.

In de 2000’s came a switch to South Korean Daewoo and KIA buses, large numbers of which were bought though many were used in the contract/schoolbus fleet. While several prototypes were bought (a Higer, an MAN, a King Long, two Mudan), no new public service buses have been bought for almost a decade.

The contract fleet is large, but school buses need to be replaced every three years, leaving the company with large numbers of buses for which there is no employ. Contract and school buses include the Japanese and Korean midibuses (Nissan Civillian, Mitsubishi Rosa, Toyota Coaster, Hyundai County), Indian TATA buses and large series of Chinese Changan buses since 2005.