The silver bus is an autonomous bus undergoing trials. The green bus is one of 20 recently built three-door Linkker LM312's which just entered public service a few days ago coincidentally. They are step-free from front to rear with a minor "hump" over the rear axle between the centre and rear door.tonyp wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 3:30 pm In terms of opening up the product range available for the RHD market, Singapore acquired in 2018 a couple of Linkker (Finland) 12 metre electric buses with bodies by Gemilang Malaysia. What's really interesting is that, I think for the first time in a RHD jurisdiction, these are a European-type three door bus with the third door behind the rear axle.
[from landtransportguru.net]
There is evidently some mechanical compromise in the conversion (I can guess at the possible reasons) in that there is a high floor between the second and third doors but the door thresholds themselves are low-entry (stepless). Not quite there, but obviously the concept of improved passenger handling is being approached in Singapore. These practices are slowly returning to RHD operations, step by step (pardon the pun) towards having no steps.
These buses have pantograph opportunity recharging at termini, not sure why. Maybe very long routes or greater power consumption because of air conditioning loads(?).
Not quite the first three door RHD buses in Singapore though as 50 diesel MAN double deckers with three doors entered service a few months ago and there are 50 diesel ADL Enviro500 double deckers also with three doors entering service soon.
There is also another three door electric bus of unknown origin (Gemilang bodied, perhaps CRRC chassis?) in SG livery which presumably will undergo demonstration soon. It will be interesting to see whether further new bus orders (most likely to be all electric too) will require three doors going forward.
https://landtransportguru.net/new-3-doo ... singapore/
