Changing Direction† Rethinking Urban Bus Design To Attract The 21st Century Passenger
Price
Free (open access)
Transaction
Volume
75
Pages
10
Published
2004
Size
513 kb
Paper DOI
10.2495/UT040501
Copyright
WIT Press
Author(s)
E. Woodcock
Abstract
Society is demanding more accessible city buses, which provide a safe and comfortable environment for passengers. Typical current designs of urban bus have a mechanical layout arrived at over fifty years ago, when operating requirements were very different. This paper describes the LoBUS low floor bus concept which is designed for modern conditions. The major pre-requisite is that responsibility for fare collection is entirely removed from the driver, but this is how becoming commonplace in many cities. The new design consists of a power module, attached to a passenger module. The power module contains a front wheel drive power train, and the driver’s accommodation. This enables the passenger module to have a very low floor, with small trailing wheels, and a simple structure. There is enormous flexibility in door and interior layout. Whilst the most common varia
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