Bendybus goes on fire...again.

[Tomcakes]

You are correct David, I am merely giving my observations as a passenger.

The reasons LRT give are fare evasion, together with accidents involving the rear doors being shut on passengers. This is despite the modern Tridents with dual doors having a buzzer or siren which sounds when the doors are shutting, akin to on the tube. First South Yorkshire bought a load of secondhand Olympians which had back doors, however drivers frequently don't open them either purposefully or accidentally - so if you're waiting to get off there it's either walk to the front or open them yourself.

[DavidH]

tombeevers said:

You are correct David, I am merely giving my observations as a passenger.

The reasons LRT give are fare evasion, together with accidents involving the rear doors being shut on passengers. This is despite the modern Tridents with dual doors having a buzzer or siren which sounds when the doors are shutting, akin to on the tube. First South Yorkshire bought a load of secondhand Olympians which had back doors, however drivers frequently don't open them either purposefully or accidentally - so if you're waiting to get off there it's either walk to the front or open them yourself.

Knowing the way First S Yorkshire drivers behave, they would deliberately not open the centre doors to be awkward. IMO the present layout of London 'deckers like the WVLs is the best, with the exit door further back.

[Dmitri]

pacific said:

If 12 metre double deckers indeed have the same turning radius as a bendybus (as someone mentioned)

It was me. Rationale: 18 m bendy bus is a 12 m bus with its rear end removed and a trailer attached instead ;D.

aspect said:

Mercedes Benz Citaro (arctic) 49 seats

+91 standing = 140. And I don't think you have much chance to overload it .

Sadly the driver of a Mercedes Artic can not monitor the behaviour of passengers for the most part he can't see them at all.

The driver should look at the road, not at the passengers.

tombeevers said:

The other problem with multiple doors is if the driver forgets he's on a dual door bus and opens the front doors out of habit, leaving people standing at the back door.

LiAZ-6212 drivers, who have to deal with 4 doors, are known to install the 'master open' and 'master close' buttons.

[Chris W]

I note that Ken said that he would dispose of the bendy's if there were more fires... I noted from last nights post 10 o'clock London local news that TfL had commented that the fire was not related to the cause of the previous fires....

IMO the bendy's were purchased as a means to take up more road space and therefore cause more traffic problems.... therefore encouraging drivers to ditch their cars... I may be completely off the mark here but that was/is the impression that I get

[sweek]

I think that even 140 is a conservative figure for the capacity of a bendy bus. They really do fit loads and loads of people; there's so much empty space in them.
I'm a frequent user of the 29/N29 and I'm quite happy with bendies. This route is always full, and there's a reason that it runs every 6 minutes all night long. With such high passenger numbers it really is important that you can enter and exit throughout the bus.
How many times do double decker buses drive past because they're completely full? Yet with bendy buses, it always seems possible to fit in a few more.

[Chris M]

Perhaps then the solution is to design a double-decker with the internal layout of a bendy and, if possible, allow standing passengers upstairs. I don't know what the reason is why this is normally not permitted - I have been a standing passenger upstairs on an old (old R reg iirc) double-decker in Swansea, where overloading of the student busses wasn't uncommon in the peaks (I've also been stood forward of the driver (instructed where to stand so I didn't block the view), and stood on the step right by the doors). Even if they had bendybusses in Swansea they couldn't put them on the 82/82A/83 student services as there wasn't enough space for them to make the three-point turn at the student village end of the route, and I'm not certain the reversing manoeuvre at the bus station end would be safe either.

[Oracle]

awkward42 said:

design a double-decker with the internal layout of a bendy

This of course has been done...D-D bendies are not unknown.

[Dmitri]

slowjoecrow said:

Fires seem to be endemic to bendy buses

Certainly not .

Portland had some Hungarian buses in the 80's and early 90s but disposed of them after a long string of mechanical problems, including overheating and fires.

Can't help wonder which ones. We have many "Ikarus-280" and "Ikarus-435" buses, and neither one has anything close to what you describe.

[Dmitri]

awkward42 said:

if possible, allow standing passengers upstairs. I don't know what the reason is why this is normally not permitted

A little known fact - in 1938-39, 10 double deck YaTB-3 trolleybuses were built in Yaroslavl to work in Moscow. In mere 1.5 years almost all of them were put aside, one of the main reasons - a very high (4.7 m) vehicle became dangerously unstable with many passengers standing upstairs and no real means to avoid it .

[Tomcakes]

I think the reason why you can't stand upstairs on a decker is a mechanics one - the centre of gravity may be increased.

I've been on buses where I've had to stand at the front next to the cab as there has been nowhere else to stand. One driver got shirty when he turned up in the peak time in a little 26 seat Dart instead of a 51 seat B10M, and the only place I could stand was at the front. Er, what do you expect if you use a minibus on a board which should be worked by a full sized one?

[Tubeboy]

Increasing the area of the base, and lowering the centre of gravity makes a vehicle more stable.

[Chris M]

I'd have thought that low-floor buses would help in this regard, lowering the centre of gravity. If you also maximise the design of the chassis and internal fittings for maximum lower deck passenger capacity so you get the largest weight downstairs this will help as well.
Possible design changes include moving the stairs to the outside rear of the bus so they don't take up room inside that could otherwise be used by passengers (like, say, a Routemaster), longitudinal seating downstairs to maximise passenger capacity (it works on a C stock) and bench seating rather than individual seats (three children or small adults can use the same space occupied by two large adults).
You could increase the width of the bus, but with the narrow streets this country has this leads to more traffic jams - I have a friend in Bristol who will go on at length about the stupidty of the modern wider buses as they cannot pass each other on his street and sometimes have to mount the kerb to get around parked cars.

[Phil]

tombeevers said:

I think the reason why you can't stand upstairs on a decker is a mechanics one - the centre of gravity may be increased.

Corrrect! We had a bus almost wrecked when all the kids upstairs deliberately moved to one side as it went round a corner: the extra weight (leverage) on that side of the suspension actually bent the shock-absorbers and it had to be removed for repair (all really to do with the statutory tilt-test).

[Colin]

Come to think of it, one bus company I drove for had a local council contract to take kids from junior school to the swimming pool for lessons - this was always a single deck job as it was never more than 30 kids (plus a few adults, of course).

On one particular occasion, the only available bus in the yard was a 'decker - much to the kids delight - and they all wanted to go upstairs. I had no objection and neither did their teachers/adults. It wasn't long before I noticed that having all your passengers upstairs (even kids) really ain't a good move ;D ;D Their faces really got me on the return journey when I said they couldn't go upstairs ..........

[Phil]

awkward42 said:

I'd have thought that low-floor buses would help in this regard, lowering the centre of gravity. If you also maximise the design of the chassis and internal fittings for maximum lower deck passenger capacity so you get the largest weight downstairs this will help as well

They do. But ground clearance suffers which can be a problem in rural areas such as ours

Possible design changes include moving the stairs to the outside rear of the bus so they don't take up room inside that could otherwise be used by passengers (like, say, a Routemaster),

Have you SEEN pics of that sorrt of bus from the '20s? How does that help?

longitudinal seating downstairs to maximise passenger capacity (it works on a C stock) and bench seating rather than individual seats (three children or small adults can use the same space occupied by two large adults)

All SLF buses have very few seats anyway.

I have a friend in Bristol who will go on at length about the stupidty of the modern wider buses as they cannot pass each other on his street and sometimes have to mount the kerb to get around parked cars.

How about instead going on about the stupidity of alllowing parking on major bus routes anyway? Punters in those streets demand buses then do their utmost to stop them by parking as they please. Buses have been the same maximum legal width for over 30 years now: it is only the size of the local car-owning resident's brain that has altered........................