WIT Press


Changing Direction† Rethinking Urban Bus Design To Attract The 21st Century Passenger

Price

Free (open access)

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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