NSW Electric Bus Plan

Sydney / New South Wales Transport Discussion
Linto63
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Linto63 »

tonyp wrote: Although the BCI is also Chinese, presumably because it's designed by BCI it has a significantly higher seating capacity than the poorly-designed BYD and Yutong, while still retaining double leaf doors.
Depends on how you define significant, but 45 seats on Interline's BCIs vs 44 on their Yutongs is much of a muchness.
tonyp wrote: The fact that the Chinese buses are designed for a shorter life doesn't come into it when the government is paying for the buses.
Designed service life design doesn't necessarily equate to how long a vehicle will last. Chinese built buses may have a shorter service life in Asia in much the same way that the European chassis used in Australia tend to last nowhere near 25 years in their home counties. Tangara trains were designed with a 25-year service life, yet will probably last for at least 40.
gilberations wrote: Why has NSW not gone with a European style (and possibly Asian I’m not sure) of bus stop/interchange superchargers? I.e. when the bus has timetables dwell time it raises a pantograph to OHW style thing ala Newcastle light rail, to give the batteries a quick boost?
Was something that was experimented with but never really took off, with charge ranges becoming sufficient to make it redundant fairly quickly. London experimented with the concept with three buses introduced on one route in 2015 with charging stations at either end of the route.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by tonyp »

Linto63 wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 1:23 pm Depends on how you define significant, but 45 seats on Interline's BCIs vs 44 on their Yutongs is much of a muchness

............

Designed service life design doesn't necessarily equate to how long a vehicle will last. Chinese built buses may have a shorter service life in Asia in much the same way that the European chassis used in Australia tend to last nowhere near 25 years in their home counties.
A Yutong with 44 seats would be for legless people. The seat pitch is already terrible in its original form. Or do the Interline ones have a single leaf centre door (compared with the BCI's double leaf), so are we comparing like with like? The Chinese buses loose at least a seat row on an unecessarily big equipment cabinet at the back.

I heard from one of the owners of one of the major Sydney operators that buses from China are designed for markets that don't require as long a frontline service life as required in Australia, so they're not built for a 25 year life. There's no special design for Australia (like a lot of products nowadays, the market is too small to warrant it). But that's not such a priority at purchase time that it deters them from buying them.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by boronia »

Operators who bought those early cheap BCI imports, soon found out it didn't take long for things to break or fall off.
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Linto63
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Linto63 »

tonyp wrote: A Yutong with 44 seats would be for legless people. The seat pitch is already terrible in its original form. Or do the Interline ones have a single leaf centre door (compared with the BCI's double leaf), so are we comparing like with like?
Appears some assumptions are being made without full knowledge of the facts. The seats may be exactly the same. While manufacturers do have a default seating they will fit out a vehicle with, the customer can specify. Hence the buses Transit Systems has specced in region 6 appear to have the same type of seat, irrespective of body manufacturer.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by tonyp »

Linto63 wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 2:00 pm
tonyp wrote: A Yutong with 44 seats would be for legless people. The seat pitch is already terrible in its original form. Or do the Interline ones have a single leaf centre door (compared with the BCI's double leaf), so are we comparing like with like?
Appears some assumptions are being made without full knowledge of the facts. The seats may be exactly the same. While manufacturers do have a default seating they will fit out a vehicle with, the customer can specify. Hence the buses Transit Systems has specced in region 6 appear to have the same type of seat, irrespective of body manufacturer.
I'm referring to seat pitch. Either Yutong has lengthened the chassis, or something has been rearranged inside to fit four extra seats with double leaf doors. The original NSW Yutong has 40 seats with a single leaf rear door and the seat pitch is very tight.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Linto63 »

Seat pitch to an extent is determined by how many seats an operator chooses to fit. If we are talking about the Yutong demonstrator that initially operated in Premier Illawarra livery and is now with Transit Systems, then yes I agree the fit out is awful, but that was built three years ago and either Yutong or Interline may have addressed.
tonyp
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by tonyp »

Within a given internal length, the more lateral seats you fit, the less the seat pitch is going to be. The original Yutong had 40 seats and a single leaf centre door. The seat pitch was so poor that I couldn't sit in any apart from the centre seat in the back row and the longitudinal seats down the front. If the interline Yutong has 44 seats (another row), a double-leaf centre door, the same disabled space and the same internal length, it defies imagination what the seat pitch must be. Anybody have internal photos of an Interline Yutong?
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by tonyp »

Linto63 wrote: Sun Jan 09, 2022 12:15 pm While some may like to think that we are taking up the use of electric traction from where we left off with trolleybuses in the 1950s, it is a totally different game. Yes they are both powered by electricity, but that's is where the similarity stops.
Comments like this beg a little education, like the bizarre dichotomy I constantly see in the industry that there are "trolley buses" and "electric buses" as if they're two completely different things. The Wellington NZ controversy a few years back saw this mash at its hilarious finest when the line being pumped was that they're "getting rid of trolleybuses and replacing them with electric buses". It has its parallel in the tram vs light rail nonsense and is really no more than marketing puffery trying to sell something new, rather than anything of technical substance.

I've dug up two pages from European manufacturers of electric buses that demonstrate that there is a single, uniform, identical piece of tech called an electric bus. That's a constant. What varies is how the power to it is supplied and that goes across a wide spectrum from different forms of overhead contact with an external source to an autonomous on-board supply that has to be refreshed by an external charge, or even charged by an on-board diesel motor or fuel cell. The original trolleybus that relied entirely on being in contact with wires is no longer on the market, so even at that end of the spectrum there's a hybrid dimension.

This page from Hess demonstrates clearly how the manufacturer sees the electric bus as a single piece of technology with a range of power sources. There is a little demo video at the end of each power option.

https://www.hess-ag.ch/services/buses/c ... s.html?L=2

What we might consider a trolleybus they've called a dynamic charging bus. It both drives itself and charges its batteries on the move via wires. In some languages this type of bus with in-motion charging is called a Dynamic Electric Bus as it can always keep moving. What we would call a battery electric bus they would call a Static Electric Bus. That is, it has to stop in order to recharge, either by opportunity charging en route or overnight at a depot. Going down the Hess list of power options, the Brisbane "Metro" buses will be a combination of opportunity (at termini) and plug (overnight) charging.

The other page here is a brochure from Skoda that shows cutaways and notes on componentry that demonstrate the uniform basic technology of all electric buses.

https://www.skoda.cz/admin/wp-content/u ... -buses.pdf

Because the brochure is a little out of date it doesn't show the type of battery and hybrid electric bus that we have here, which they also manufacture off the same basic platform. They also have similar types of power options on their trams. These options exist because different operations have different requirements. All have their pluses and minuses, including the battery-electric bus which has a weight and passenger capacity (because of weight) disadvantage, for example. It's impossible to say that one type is best. They all offer different types of benefits for different operating environments.

Really anybody who talks about trolleybuses as some separate item of technology has no understanding of electric bus technology or the industry. The battery-electric bus has directly evolved from the trolleybus and is part of the same spectrum of power supply options. China manufactures trolleybuses too, in case somebody thinks they've created something different. They got the technology from Europe, among everything else they've pinched from elsewhere and claimed as their own. Just clearing up a few misconceptions.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Linto63 »

Enlightening, but as I had already acknowledged your point 9 days ago, the 'education' wasn't needed. :?
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by 1whoknows »

Also with the flash charging its mainly used when electric buses are on particular dedicated runs, whereas typical rostering in Oz sees a bus work across several different routes in a shift. Flash charging might be suitable for applications like, say, Melbourne's Skybus route where electrics could be quickly recharged at either the city or airport terminal between trips. The electrics in Geneva started on one route with flash charging at stops. The other one I've seen is Vienna where the electric midis servicing the old town lay up for 10 mins or so at the "ring" end where they can flash recharge when required. This works well as the current is available from the adjacent tram wires.
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Linto63
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Linto63 »

While not directly public transport related, in an article on the Sydney Morning Herald website the Australian Trucking Association notes that it costs $40 to fuel a diesel truck per 100km vs $6 for an electric. Also reports Volvo is planning to assemble electric trucks in Brisbane by 2025.

Make Trucks electric to lift suburban curfews and ease congestion: Trucking industry
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Glen »

From Buzz Buzz, the quarterly newsletter from the public transport team at the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS) in The University of Sydney Business School.

Zero Emission Buses (ZEB’s) Forum, Wednesday 1st December

ITLS hosted a very successful ZEB Forum on 1st December as a contribution to the current debate around Zero Emission Buses (ZEBs). Chaired by Professor John Nelson, Chair in Public Transport, the Forum was opened by Rob Sharp, Secretary of Transport for New South Wales. The event featured contributions from all of the key players in the energy and transport sectors. The keynote was given by ITLS Founding Director Professor David Hensher who presented his latest ideas on Zero Emission Buses and the move to Supply Chain Partnership Contracts. With over 150 participants the Forum generated wide-ranging discussion and has attracted much positive feedback.

The recordings from the Forum are available under the ZEB heading on the ITLS projects page. Click here.

https://business-comms.sydney.edu.au/li ... /page.html
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

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tonyp wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 8:56 pm Within a given internal length, the more lateral seats you fit, the less the seat pitch is going to be. The original Yutong had 40 seats and a single leaf centre door. The seat pitch was so poor that I couldn't sit in any apart from the centre seat in the back row and the longitudinal seats down the front. If the interline Yutong has 44 seats (another row), a double-leaf centre door, the same disabled space and the same internal length, it defies imagination what the seat pitch must be. Anybody have internal photos of an Interline Yutong?
The interline Yutongs do have double leaf centre doors I've caught one on a few occasions before and after lockdown with the last time I did being a couple of days ago
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by tonyp »

Campbelltown busboy wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:05 pm The interline Yutongs do have double leaf centre doors I've caught one on a few occasions before and after lockdown with the last time I did being a couple of days ago
Yes I know, I've seen photos. What I'm trying to understand is that the original Yutong bus in NSW has 40 seats with a single leaf centre door. The seat pitch is really tight. I'm wondering how they fitted in 44 seats (an extra row) plus a double leaf door in the same length. The only thing I can guess it is that they've reduced the height of the cabinet at the back and put the last row of seats on top of it against the back bulkhead. That doesn't explain the two seats lost from the wider door.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

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tonyp wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:23 pm
Campbelltown busboy wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:05 pm The interline Yutongs do have double leaf centre doors I've caught one on a few occasions before and after lockdown with the last time I did being a couple of days ago
Yes I know, I've seen photos. What I'm trying to understand is that the original Yutong bus in NSW has 40 seats with a single leaf centre door. The seat pitch is really tight. I'm wondering how they fitted in 44 seats (an extra row) plus a double leaf door in the same length. The only thing I can guess it is that they've reduced the height of the cabinet at the back and put the last row of seats on top of it against the back bulkhead. That doesn't explain the two seats lost from the wider door.
Have you ever seen the interior of a Interline spec Yutong
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by tonyp »

Campbelltown busboy wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:58 pm Have you ever seen the interior of a Interline spec Yutong
No, that's precisely what I need to see!
Linto63
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Linto63 »

Perhaps rather carrying on like a barrack-room lawyer, making presumptive comments about how bad something must be, you could at least make an effort to avail yourself of the facts. While they don't tell the full story, these YouTube clips indicate that unless all of the passengers are vertically challenged, seat pitch doesn't appear to be an issue and is comparable with other Sydney buses.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by tonyp »

Linto63 wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 7:54 pm Perhaps rather carrying on like a barrack-room lawyer, making presumptive comments about how bad something must be, you could at least make an effort to avail yourself of the facts. While they don't tell the full story, these YouTube clips indicate that unless all of the passengers are vertically challenged, seat pitch doesn't appear to be an issue and is comparable with other Sydney buses.
The videos contribute nothing to answering the question about how they've fitted in an extra row of seats. Typical gunzel videos where the camera isn't panned at all, so it's impossible to conclude anything about the interior. I couldn't total more than about 40 seats reading those videos together, so I assume something has happened up the back to enable extra space.

I'm not particularly critical of the Yutong. It's the best of the Chinese buses on the local market and has sold quite an extensive international fleet because of its qualities, but in Australia with its often longer bus journeys, there is an expectation of a certain seating capacity which is typically around 42-44 for this type of bus with two double-leaf doors. So, they've obviously responded to the local market by modifying the bus to meet this expectation. One doesn't need to be a lawyer to be entitled to ask for detail information about the bus interior and we don't know anything about seat pitch unless we see a measured drawing or have a comparative ride in the bus. So my question still stands as you certainly haven't come anywhere near answering it. So you might like to keep out of it if you can't contribute anything.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

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Linto63 wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 7:54 pm Perhaps rather carrying on like a barrack-room lawyer, making presumptive comments about how bad something must be, you could at least make an effort to avail yourself of the facts. While they don't tell the full story, these YouTube clips indicate that unless all of the passengers are vertically challenged, seat pitch doesn't appear to be an issue and is comparable with other Sydney buses.
Having been a passenger on both the 40 seat demonstrator and the 44 seat Interline version (also the same as used in Brisbane I believe), I can definitely vouch for the fact that seat pitch is pretty appalling on the 44 seat version. The 40 seat demonstrator was nowhere near as bad in my opinion - although the slimline seats and the smaller intrusion of the rear wheel arch (compared to the 44 seat version) would have helped.

It might be a little hard to visualise from these photos but that wheel arch protrusion has got to be the worst I've seen. Leg room in all the other seats is hardly any better, even closer to the front in the low floor section. Cramming in the extra row of seating has definitely come at the expense of passenger comfort.
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I agree though that in general, the Yutong E12 isn't as bad as some of the others but it is a pity they didn't go for the full low floor layout on their E12 like they have literally everywhere else (i.e. Europe, Singapore, Chile etc). That would help a lot with the design and perception of spaciousness.

It is worth noting that having also experienced the Custom Denning Element, while the layout is much more passenger friendly, seat pitch definitely isn't the greatest. I would say seat pitch is definitely better than the Yutong but it isn't anything outstanding and it certainly isn't widespread in every row. I think in this case though, using slimline seats like those that I believe have recently been fitted to a QLD demonstrator may be enough to mitigate the issue for most passengers.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by tonyp »

There is certainly a general tendency in Australian citybus design over the years to cram in those 44 seats come hell or high water and I can see that the Yutong distributor has tried to do that, throwing passenger friendliness to the wind. They're heavily constrained by the space-eating equipment cabinet up the back that is typical on Chinese buses, a product in which ergonomics have never been a strong point. The Europeans tend to lower the height of that cabinet so that they can get the back row of seats on top of it, something that Custom Denning has done here too.

It will be interesting to discover the seating capacity of an eventual 12.5 metre Volgren Volvo BZL as, judging by the Perth buses, they seem to have a full height cabinet at the back - uniquely among European electric buses, but then they're not among the best of the Europeans for electric buses. I'm aware that the Element doesn't consistently have the greatest seat pitch and it will be interesting to see what it's like on the Volvo. As long as we have this local gospel that as many seats should be crammed in as possible, seat pitch is going to be a chronic issue.

By slimline seats Mr OCB, do you mean those European-style individual seats as fitted to the new Element for Queensland?
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Linto63 »

The 2018 built demonstrator had individual seats, the Interline deliveries have the more conventional bench seats.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Mr OC Benz »

tonyp wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 8:13 amBy slimline seats Mr OCB, do you mean those European-style individual seats as fitted to the new Element for Queensland?
Yes, the individual seats, however, I understand they are lighter and slimmer than the ones typically used on diesel buses in Europe, Melbourne etc. The Yutong demonstrator, the initial four TSA BYD/Gemilang's, the BCI demonstrator and that QLD Element so far seem to be the only buses fitted with them (and by them, I think they are from various seat manufacturers but pretty sure they follow the same concept of being lighter/slimmer - intended for electric buses)?
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Stonesourscotty »

5005 Potentially first day in service in the odd looking Nsw livery outside the Tattersalls pub looking worse for wear.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Swift »

What an enormous waste of money repainting it to look the same as everything else. The dark haired glasses wearing.NPCs behind that decision devoid of any passion also wasted an opportunity to get the public on board by simply leaving its demo livery alone.
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Linto63
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Linto63 »

The bus illustrated was delivered in, rather then repainted into, the standard TfNSW livery. The poppy livery carried by some buses appears only to be a temporary measure, with buses painted in base TfNSW livery with the poppy vinyls applied on top. While it may not be everybody's cup of tea, wouldn't describe the TfNSW livery as odd.
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