I’ll be interested to see how the major body builder go with the whole electric bus thing. They may continue to produce them with proprietary and off the self components and chassis, or they could use the European chassis’ and systems. Both BusTech and Custom are using using proprietary/off the self components for the ZDi and Element, respectively. If orders are large enough in the feature, companies like Scania might need to look at diversifying or bodying buses themselves to stay afloat.

BusFan23 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:49 pm I’ll be interested to see how the major body builder go with the whole electric bus thing. They may continue to produce them with proprietary and off the self components and chassis, or they could use the European chassis’ and systems. Both BusTech and Custom are using using proprietary/off the self components for the ZDi and Element, respectively. If orders are large enough in the feature, companies like Scania might need to look at diversifying or bodying buses themselves to stay afloat.

The next major player to enter the local electric market will be Volvo with a Volgren body on its chassis. This should be available nationally in 2022 (WA in 2021). There are no indications of Volgren producing an integral bus, but it will have a formidable product with Volvo and therefore hasn't much reason to go the integral path. Custom Denning and Bustech may stay with the integral product - remains to be seen. The Element and Volgren Volvo will be class-leading products. We're just waiting to see what Bustech comes up with now. The Zemtec dark horse from NZ is also a potential player.

Bustech artic looks close to completion

https://fb.watch/51UcgKw4VL/

Bustech has opened its new paint shop out at Edinburgh. Its first vehicle to be painted was an Artic.

There is already a Bustech Discussion thread. Might be better to keep everything in just one?

boronia wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 3:25 pm There is already a Bustech Discussion thread. Might be better to keep everything in just one?

This is a totally different and new topic so having its own thread is justified.

No does not need a separate thread - it is already being discussed in this thread. Admin.

Lt. Commander Data wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 11:48 am Bustech artic looks close to completion

https://fb.watch/51UcgKw4VL/

Great to see they dealt with that high window line

I suppose these are probably Combos, then?

Merc1107 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 24, 2021 10:22 am
Great to see they dealt with that high window line

I suppose these are probably Combos, then?

Combos are right up Bustech's alley, being just about the last manufacturer in the low floor era with expertise in building outdated citybus designs with high floors and stepped entries. Anyway, they can do what they want. What really puzzles me is Ad Met's thought processes:

1. Presumably they're aware of the science of designing modern commuter vehicles that you don't have stairs at doorways, because they slow passenger flows and create difficulty and a safety issue for passengers with mobility issues.
2. So, knowing this, they make Bustech change the design of their Adelaide XDi to enable a stepless centre door.
3. Ad Met enables all-door loading, meaning twice as many people now use the centre doors.
4. Ad Met orders more Combo artics with stairs at the centre doors, probably the only city in the world, with Canberra, still ordering artics with high floors and doors with stairs.

Admet is by no means the only city in the world clinging to the low entrance/high floor combo configuration, but they should be now embracing full floor buses. Despite the various comments about loadings and unloadings in Adelaide, in reality there is not heaps of pressure for all door loading - maybe only on the o-Bahn buses and at the afternoon peak times in the city. The rest is grossly overstated.

Adelaide's use of public transport is abysmal, maybe well under 30% of all journey's to and from the city. Adelaide is well laid out with wide straight roads and comparatively low population density - great place to live (and I am very close to the city centre) but hopeless for public transport.

That is my weak excuse ( to my wife ) as to why I am travelling to Sydney, next week, to enjoy the double deckers and the London Transport Sunday, at the museum.

It would be interesting to know where else in the world still uses high floor artics with a low entry at the front on city commuter services - as distinct from the usual low-entry type with low floor all the way to the rear axle then a short high-floor saloon right at the back. The latter have low entry at all doors and don't present the same issue.

Yes, interesting comment, but I cannot spend time looking at this, at present, cooking a barbecue has to come first, but chassis manufacturers would not produce small numbers of chassis for Adelaide alone - will look a little later!!

Is it not the body builder creating the Combo body rather than the chassis manufacturer?
Adelaide’s L94UA 2801 (bodied by Volgren) is low floor through to after the rear door, while L94UA 2802 (bodied by Custom coaches) is a combo.

Lt. Commander Data wrote:Is it not the body builder creating the Combo body rather than the chassis manufacturer?
Adelaide’s L94UA 2801 (bodied by Volgren) is low floor through to after the rear door, while L94UA 2802 (bodied by Custom coaches) is a combo.

I believe it is chassis manufacturer as the turntable and other components have to be designed with the high-floor/combo design in mind.

Lt. Commander Data wrote: ↑Sat Apr 24, 2021 9:55 pm Is it not the body builder creating the Combo body rather than the chassis manufacturer?
Adelaide’s L94UA 2801 (bodied by Volgren) is low floor through to after the rear door, while L94UA 2802 (bodied by Custom coaches) is a combo.

Definitely the artic chassis is high-floor as BusFan23 mentions and those L94UAs must surely have some further code to differentiate them. However, there are examples of high floors being built on low-floor chassis (or part of chassis) in Australian rigid buses, such as the Bustech XDi/VST models, the Yutong E12 and, I believe the MAN Lions City.

Thanks! Didn’t know that was the case

tonyp wrote: ↑Sat Apr 24, 2021 6:14 pm It would be interesting to know where else in the world still uses high floor artics with a low entry at the front on city commuter services - as distinct from the usual low-entry type with low floor all the way to the rear axle then a short high-floor saloon right at the back. The latter have low entry at all doors and don't present the same issue.

Although artics aren’t as common, where they do exist in the Nordic countries and some Baltic countries, many are of the combo design (high floor from the second door) in a 3 or 4 door configuration.

The preference for the Nordic countries at least seems to be for low entry three axle buses up to 15m in length, rather than artics. These 15m buses usually have a third single leaf door at the rear. They are typically used on suburban/inter-urban services rather than busy inner city services which would typically use full low floor buses (although not always the case!).

Solaris and Yutong have designed electric buses specifically for this market which are 15m in length with a low entry design and a third door at the rear that is accessed via steps.

I agree with the comments about Nordic countries or at least Finland that I know very well, through numerous times there (my wife is from Helsinki) - 15m combos are certainly used on the longer urban/suburban runs and I think some of inner suburbs Helsinki 12mtr buses are low entrance only. Over the years, I have noticed fewer numbers of artics and I don't recall seeing any in 2019. I haven't been to either Denmark or Sweden for a number of years, so I cannot comment on their situations.

Finland is a reasonable sized country by area but has a total population of only 5.5m and the capital, Helsinki has less than 700,000 residents.

All of those Scandinavian countries have substantial and heavily-used metro and/or tram systems in their larger cities, carrying the majority of the public transport patronage, so the need for artics would be less. The busiest bus line in Helsinki, 550 (Jokeri), is being replaced by a new tram line. A general policy position in Europe is that, when patronage rises to a level where artics are needed, there's an effort to extend metro or tram systems to cover those areas. Nevertheless, city budgets and so on don't always keep up with such intentions, so use of artics is massive in many cities where public transport usage is very high, predominantly in Central Europe. As they're effectively performing the task of a tram, the layout of these artics is based on an ability to process large turnovers of passengers quickly, so four or five doors is pretty standard and fully low floor is an unquestioned requirement. As in train and tram design there, stairs of any sort are an impediment to efficient operation.

BUS MANUALS ARE YOU STILL LOOKING FOR YOUR BUS MANUALS AND GEARBOX ONE
GUY ARAB

https://www.facebook.com/37669138901752 ... 822024337/

Cheers!

Please translate for non facebook users.

Fleet Lists wrote: ↑Fri May 14, 2021 2:58 pm Please translate for non facebook users.

Their first artic for Adelaide:

https://vimeo.com/549100379?fbclid=IwAR ... 9g2lwdJlFM

Nine being built. 59 seaters.

A strange looking beast, visually not helped by trying to adapt Adelaide's current livery to an artic - I am not a fan of the current livery. But what I really find rather disappointing is the low seating numbers - 59 for an 18 metre bus is honestly pathetic. Adelaide's original Volvo B58 and B10M PMC (high floor) artics seated 73!!

This is where double deckers come into their own, with a typical 12 metre seating 28 on the lower deck and a totally clear upper deck seating (on average) 57!!!!

Tim Williams wrote: ↑Fri May 14, 2021 5:26 pm A strange looking beast, visually not helped by trying to adapt Adelaide's current livery to an artic - I am not a fan of the current livery. But what I really find rather disappointing is the low seating numbers - 59 for an 18 metre bus is honestly pathetic. Adelaide's original Volvo B58 and B10M PMC (high floor) artics seated 73!!

This is where double deckers come into their own, with a typical 12 metre seating 28 on the lower deck and a totally clear upper deck seating (on average) 57!!!!

A proper low-entry Volgren artic with three double leaf stepless doors, which is the standard Australian artic at the moment, seats about 58 which is pretty good for an artic. This Bustech has a single-leaf second door, so I guess they got an extra seat or so out of it. Artics aren't meant to have a high seating capacity being a high-turnover citybus design. I don't know the nature of all the operations on which artics are used in Adelaide (apart from the O Bahn), but certainly double decks are good in situations like the Sydney B1 with limited stops and a journey time up to one hour - long-distance semi-express routes. If there are trips like that in Adelaide I would be advocating deckers too.