Is All Door Boarding Really Working?

[Swift]

We need to stop all those daft passengers who insist on exiting all doors (front ones namely).

[busrider]

I'd say it's due to operator specification more than anything else, although in Adelaide's case, suitability for the O-Bahn may also be a factor. Adelaide's Custom-bodied Scania L94UAs have the step after the centre door, whereas the 3 Volgren CR224L bodied L94UAs are low floor to the rear door. Of course, those 3 artics weren't built new for Adelaide. I'm sure tonyp would take much displeasure in hearing that Adelaide also has a Volgren CR228L artic with only 2 doors, and the dreaded steps at the middle axle, roughly where a centre door would be if there was one...

[tonyp]

To get the most benefit out of an artic you really need all-door loading, both to spread the load right through the bus and to exchange passengers quickly within a short dwell. Plus low floor right through to the rear axle (if not right to the rear) to stop the crowd coming to a halt and blocking things up at the first set of aisle stairs.

People do like to be within proximity to a door because naturally they worry about not being able to reach a door to get out in a crowd. That's why artics must have at least three doors. The other thing that will spook passengers is if drivers get a bit sporadic about opening doors to let people out.

At one stage (is it still the case?) State Transit in Sydney had a daft policy of only opening two out of the three doors in artics to let people out. Now that would really spook people down the back of a bus and would definitely discourage people from moving down the back. Sydney bus users would be very familiar with the sight and sound of a yelling passenger pushing their way in a panic through the crowd to get to the front door because the driver has had a whim to not open the back door/s. Creating a climate of uncertainty and inconsistency is no way to run a public transport operation.

[TA3001]

To get the most benefit out of an artic you really need all-door loading, both to spread the load right through the bus and to exchange passengers quickly within a short dwell. Plus low floor right through to the rear axle (if not right to the rear) to stop the crowd coming to a halt and blocking things up at the first set of aisle stairs.

People do like to be within proximity to a door because naturally they worry about not being able to reach a door to get out in a crowd. That's why artics must have at least three doors. The other thing that will spook passengers is if drivers get a bit sporadic about opening doors to let people out.

Adelaide had a fleet of PMC bodied Volvo B58Hs and B10MAs until 2004-2005 which only had doors at the front and in the trailer section, and I have seen full standing loads on these. The MAN SG280Hs had 3 sets of doors though, as do the CC bodied artics built new for Adelaide.

However, ones delivered to Southlink seem to have seats next to the door in the front section, obviously for extra seating capacity.

And BTW, if all door boarding was to be rolled out across the entire Adelaide network, 45 rigid buses in the hills would have to be modified to permit boarding through the centre door, as all the standard size rigids at Aldgate and Mount Barker are single door.

[Swift]

Single door artics like Canberra has are inexcusable. An average Eastern European would be aghast at the sight of those abominations.

[tonyp]

Single door artics like Canberra has are inexcusable. An average Eastern European would be aghast at the sight of those abominations.

Aren't the ACT ones two-door? I presume, like the ones on Sydney's northern beaches, they're used for long-distance runs with low turnover along the route. Across Europe there is a range of from three to five doors on artics, depending on the type of service (turnover of passengers) they're performing.

[Swift]

Memory must be playing tricks. It must have been a rigid low floor I was disgusted with. Glad to be mistaken.
Still Australia is a lower standard than Europe when it comes to the expected amount of doors for a task, but some members here will insist Australia is a hidden secret in world best bus design and standard and the rest of the world is wrong. Don't you dare say anything is wrong with Australian bus designs or off with your head, oh that's right, we can't have capital punishment either, Australia thinks it's wrong too!