Left Hand Drive (fully) Low Floor Bus

[Tim Williams]

usc_story2_hero1_1200x675 (2).jpg (58.92 KiB) Viewed 10226 times

The USC Morton Bay is trying to tempt students to enroll there offering a more cost effective and less stressful study time at the university. Local transport is part of the deal. There was an advertorial article in Adelaide now today with this photo of the bus transport.

What a magnificent beast and the bus isn't bad too!!!

[system improver]

I've recently completed a visit to Scandinavia. Almost all the buses in Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen are three door (artics four), 100% low floor and either electric or hybrid.

[Tim Williams]

Would have been an interesting trip. I mentioned Helsinki before and Tonyp mentioned that he doubted their buses are full low floor and he was correct. Even the 3 door buses are only low entrance and there are naturally quite a number of steps to negotiate at the rear door - I will try and dig up a photo.

If I remember correctly Tonyp was making the point that their loadings are not really high (Finland is a prosperous country) but they have long 3 axle urban buses in Helsinki, but not full low floor. I unfortunately did not spend a lot of time chasing around after buses, having promised my Finnish wife of many years, that we would spend time on bus-less islands and in a country town where her brother and family live!!

[1whoknows]

Tim, now that's really bad.
My wife and I have a system where she will spend half a day or whatever in an art gallery or foodie tour whilst I'm off doing the transport in whatever city we are in.
At the end of the day we are both happy!

[Tim Williams]

I probably should add that I have been married for many, many years and when we were younger, I used to drag my wife around to all sorts seedy places, where bus stations often exist. For example, the Greyhound terminal in Los Angeles (in the 1970's) was in a shocking part of that city and it was dusk when we were there. We both felt relieved to get out of there in one piece, despite being followed for a while by a couple of threatening looking characters!

I wouldn't dream of doing that now. But, good luck to you two, you seem to have struck a nice balance.

[tonyp]

My information would have come second hand from Mr OC Benz on this forum, but of course new bus purchases are happening all the time and no doubt fully low floor is now more standard across Europe, while ever-increasing demand would account for having extra doors. The five-door type standard artic that was originally only in Czech Republic (SOR) is now also on the German market from MAN.

Looking forward to your account of the Sydney airport train on the Sydney forum Tim, it sounds interesting!

[Tim Williams]

I have inadvertently started my Sydney Trains/Airport Link topic in the Adelaide/SA section and I have asked how it can be moved. However, even where it is, I would be interested in your response Tonyp!!

[Mr OC Benz]

Would have been an interesting trip. I mentioned Helsinki before and Tonyp mentioned that he doubted their buses are full low floor and he was correct. Even the 3 door buses are only low entrance and there are naturally quite a number of steps to negotiate at the rear door - I will try and dig up a photo.

If I remember correctly Tonyp was making the point that their loadings are not really high (Finland is a prosperous country) but they have long 3 axle urban buses in Helsinki, but not full low floor. I unfortunately did not spend a lot of time chasing around after buses, having promised my Finnish wife of many years, that we would spend time on bus-less islands and in a country town where her brother and family live!!

My information would have come second hand from Mr OC Benz on this forum, but of course new bus purchases are happening all the time and no doubt fully low floor is now more standard across Europe, while ever-increasing demand would account for having extra doors. The five-door type standard artic that was originally only in Czech Republic (SOR) is now also on the German market from MAN.

Looking forward to your account of the Sydney airport train on the Sydney forum Tim, it sounds interesting!

At risk of going too far off-topic, just to respond to above posts... the main reason I suspect that Helsinki buses are predominantly low entry is that they mostly perform a longer distance suburban function. The actual city centre is quite small - not too dissimilar to Australian cities and like say Melbourne is predominantly served by trams, despite being quite walkable (albeit frozen over in winter), to the extent that there are very few bus routes needing to operate within the city centre itself. There is also the metro line which in a similar manner to the future Sydney Metro, travels east-west from the far flung suburbs (by Helsinki standards) into and through the CBD to the other end. So this predominantly leaves buses to the task of filling in the gaps that the tram, metro and suburban/regional rail don't serve leading to relatively longer routes (by European standards) from far flung suburbs into the city centre with as well as feeders to these rail modes.

From memory, I'm pretty sure for the few routes that operate within the Helsinki city centre itself are operated by fully low floor buses while the remainder that operate to the suburbs are low entry, predominantly long 3 axle buses as mentioned which maximise seating while maintaining acceptable dwell times on the longer journeys with lower pax turnover.