The two-axle Enviro 400 is a very popular Alexander Dennis model in the UK.

The British market for city buses fell back badly in 2010, not just because of the global financial crisis, but also two of the major groups cut back heavily on their normal procurement of new vehicles. The effect was still felt in the first half of 2011.
Recovery came in the second half and forward order books for 2012 are looking healthier with a recent boost by the British government’s decision to give a further $40 million US toward the purchase of hybrid buses, which will make up much of the difference between a standard diesel bus and a hybrid version.

Since 2004 Alexander Dennis (ADL) has concentrated on its design, manufacture of double deck buses for British, and export markets, as well midibuses, which have proven very popular.

Colin Robertson became chief executive officer for Alexander Dennis in the spring of 2007 following a number of senior executive positions with Terex, including a stint in the United States. Within a matter of weeks of his arrival ADL bought out Plaxton, the only remaining builder of luxury coach bodywork in the United Kingdom, giving the enlarged company a turnover in excess of $350 million US per annum. As it turned out, Plaxton gave ADL valuable additional capacity to build city buses.

The Plaxton Elite comes across as very luxurious.

Under Robertson’s leadership, ADL further modernized its product range, including hybrid buses with BAE Systems. This program has been so successful that ADL is currently the largest producer of hybrid buses in Europe with nearly 500 in service or on order at the turn of the year.

Proven very reliable even in the heaviest of traffic in London, some of the earliest deliveries already have accumulated nearly 200,000 miles with savings in fuel consumption of around 30 percent.

ADL and BAE Systems are working closely on further refinement of the hybrid drive system. They plan to introduce a stop-start function very soon and anticipate that it will give a further 10 percent saving in fuel consumption.

During his press conference at the recent exhibition in Birmingham, UK, Robertson stressed the importance of export business to compensate for the fluctuations in the British market. ADL has developed a new version of its 40-foot Enviro 500 double deck bus, which is 13.5 feet in height for the North American market. The floor is only 14 inches above ground, helped by the use of smaller wheels and tires. A Cummins ISB engines fits vertically in line coupled to fully automatic Allison gearboxes. The engine can be either four or six cylinder depending on overall length and the customer’s power requirements.

The 49-ft Volvo with a Plaxton Panther body is popular on express services.

ADL describes the new product as a “Go Anywhere Double Deck” that opens up new opportunities across North America for transit routes previously hindered by low bridge constraints and the need for special height permits.

Robertson was delighted to announce orders and options for a total of 220 of these new 99-passenger vehicles to operators in Ottawa and Toronto for Q3 2012 delivery. ADL also is delivering the shorter two-axle Enviro 400 double deck buses with open tops for sightseeing to Hawaii.

ADL already has double deck fleets running in New York, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver.
“I believe that after a brief rebound the global economy is back on its heels,” said Robertson, speaking to the economic state. “The persistent stagnation in Europe and renewed weakness in the U.S. means that global output from the developed world for the medium-term will not be better than anemic – and the risk of another slowdown is very real. Those who stand still, in good or bad times, are dead in the water.”

Robertson has driven a major cultural change in ADL with results clearly seen in the product range. He says his company has re-calibrated the way it plans, resources, designs, engineers, manufactures and provides whole-life support for its customers.
Financially, ADL has performed extremely well. The group has increased its output 60 percent from 2009 to 2011 with a record order book equivalent to $560 million US. Robertson forecasts that number rising to $700 million in 2012, justifying his claim ADL is the fastest growing bus manufacturer in Europe. The icing on the cake is the fact that the company is also become debt free.

The Enviro 200 midibus is built to various lengths and currently holds 70 percent of the UK market in this weight range.

Dennis chassis are assembled in a factory at Guildford, which is about 25 miles south west of London’s Heathrow Airport. They are designed for close integration with the group’s bodywork, but can also be supplied to other bodybuilders.

All models use Cummins engines of various different sizes, coupled to Allison, Voith or ZF fully automatic gearboxes. Axles are a mixture of Dana and ZF, making it relatively easy to source these components in North America for customers needing to comply with Buy American requirements. Bodywork can be supplied in kit form for assembly by local labor.

The Alexander factory at Falkirk in Scotland principally builds double deck city bus bodywork, not only on ADL chassis, but sometimes also on Scania. Other products include a full-size, heavy-duty single-deck transit bus body.

All the construction is in Alexander’s own time-tested bolted aluminium system. Although aluminium is much more expensive than steel, the savings in weight are particularly important with a double deck bus. There is also complete resistance to corrosion and the ease of recycling, an important factor with Europe’s end-of-life regulations which are affecting all kinds of automotive products.

The assembly of midibus bodywork was transferred two or three years ago to the Plaxton factory at Scarborough on the north east coast of England. These are also built in the same bolted aluminum and range in length from 29 to 38 feet. The Plaxton factory has traditionally built luxury coach bodywork, principally on Volvo chassis, but also on Iveco, and more recently on Scania.

Plaxton is also the principal supplier of coaches to the British operations of megabus.com. Although they run some double deck coaches on UK services, the main work horses are 49-foot tri-axle coaches mounted on Volvo chassis.

Most coaches in the UK are built to an overall length of 40 feet on two axles. Plaxton is the market leader. When megabus.com introduced its tri-axle giants, many wondered whether they would be able to work in our congested towns and cities, with narrow streets and tight corners. They are in fact remarkably maneuverable, with the third trailing axle also steering, giving great operational flexibility. Two tri-axle models can handle almost the same number of passengers as three 40-foot coaches with considerable savings in running costs.

With ambitious plans to grow further, ADL says it is heavily committed to new product development and is not resting on its laurels.

Doug Jack is with Transport Resources in the United Kingdom.

The latest generation of Neoplan Skyliner double deck coach.

By Doug Jack

Every second year for one week in October, the small city of Kortrijk in the west of Belgium becomes the global hub of the bus and coach industry. BusWorld began as a tiny local exhibition in 1971 and has nearly outgrown the Xpo Centre in Kortrijk. More than 340 exhibitors from 32 countries displayed, including 70 either complete vehicles or bodywork on chassis.
An all-time record 31,680 visitors from 118 countries filled hotels in a 30-mile radius in spite of many parts of the world suffering severe economic problems.
Busworld Kortrijk coincided with the birth of the seven billionth global inhabitant. All those people will travel during their lives, and that augurs well for the long-term prospects for buses and coaches.
Headquartered in the Netherlands, the VDL Group secured the coveted “International Coach of the Year 2012” trophy with its New Futura coach family, chosen after a series of comparative tests by a jury of 17 European trade journalists. They were impressed with the overall build quality, especially the interior trimming. Its DAF (Paccar) engine and automated gearbox make the coach very driveable.

The new Scania Citywide bus has an aluminium structure.

Belgium-based Van Hool introduced a large stand of new products. Its new TX series replaces the popular T9 range of integral coaches. The new TX family features approximately 60 improvements compared with the previous T9 models, ranging from more aerodynamic styling to a number of safety and comfort features for drivers, tour guides and passengers.
Two examples of Van Hool city buses were a hybrid bus for the principality of Monaco and the new ExquiCity Bus Rapid Transit vehicle in the form of an articulated trolleybus for the Italian city of Parma.
Van Hool took orders for 140 of the new TX family before the show opened. On top of that, Megabus.com is taking delivery of 60 double deck coaches for its network in the United States, and ordered a further 80 similar vehicles for delivery in 2012, plus 11 for the British network.
Both Volvo and Scania launched new city buses. To save weight and improve fuel efficiency, Volvo built the underframe, front and rear frames of its Volvo 7900 in steel with the rest of the bus bolted aluminium.
Scania builds its city buses in Slupsk in Northern Poland. The Citywide is available either with a full-length low floor and transversely mounted rear engine, or as a low-entry model with a conventional rear axle and the engine mounted vertically in line.
Solaris celebrated 15 years of manufacturing buses in Poland. The company has a well-deserved reputation for innovation, including various types of hybrid buses, all-electric trolleybuses and vehicles that can run on compressed natural gas or biogas. The latter is particularly popular in Sweden because it is a totally renewable source of fuel.

The new Van Hool TX range includes this model with a ramped, theatre style, floor.

Solaris exhibited its Urbino Electric midibus, built to an overall length of just over 29 feet with a Vossloh-Kiepe electric motor mounted at the rear, driving into the rear axle. Two packs of lithium-ion batteries mounted on either side of the motor capture and store electrical energy. Only the system’s power electronics and a legally required brake resistor mount on the roof. Solaris says this has a range of up to 70 miles when fully charged and can recharge in four hours. The company is working on plans to extend the range and reduce the recharging time.
Another Solaris exhibit was an Urbino 18 Hybrid MetroStyle powered by an Allison parallel hybrid system originally developed for BRT systems in France. The doors are wider than normal, also super-single tires fit on the middle axle to give a wider interior gangway.
Temsa, the Turkish builder, extended the popular Safari coach family with a 45-foot tri-axle model. The company has also added city and surburban vehicles to its new MD range. Many of the structures are of stainless steel, which is increasingly popular in Europe because of its resistance to corrosion.
Omer Sozutek, International Development Director, says Temsa is introducing 40- and 45-foot models to the United States, thus becoming the only manufacturer able to supply 35-, 40- and 45-foot length motorcoaches.
The European Union will move to Euro 6 emission limits for new buses and coaches placed in service beginning 2014. MAN showed its popular Lion’s City bus with a Euro 6 engine. While these engines require larger cooling systems than the present generation, MAN showed the Euro 6 unit can be installed without any loss of space for passengers.
Nowadays, Neoplan is a wholly owned subsidiary of MAN and concentrates on building top-end luxury coaches. One of the stars of the show was the fifth generation double deck Skyliner coach. This beautifully finished product will go into volume production early next year.
Castrosua is a leading Spanish builder of city bus bodywork. Two years ago it developed its own complete integral hybrid bus. At Kortrijk it showed this bus with a gas fuelled engine developed primarily to meet the requirements of Madrid. Tata Hispano offered the same gas hybrid combination for Madrid.
Another Spanish builder UNVI showed an open top double deck body for city sightseeing mounted on an Alexander Dennis chassis with a BAE Systems hybrid drive. This is believed to be the first open top hybrid double deck bus built — at least in Europe. At present, many sightseeing services operate conversions of older double deck buses with older and more polluting engines, running most of the time in lower gears through historic city centers. The stop-start driving is ideal for hybrid technology.
BMC, based in Izmir, Turkey, showed a hybrid low-floor city bus, with a Cummins engine and a Siemens drive system. Also from Turkey, Otokar had a large stand including a full low-floor city bus fitted with a number of safety features, such as closed circuit television. The authorities in the main cities in Turkey are keen to reduce the large numbers of minibuses, which operate on fixed routes like shared taxis. They are a major cause of congestion and pollution, but it will be a gradual process to replace them with larger vehicles.
Though headquartered in France Iveco Irisbus is a wholly owned subsidiary of the new Fiat Industrial, which became operational January 2011. Its exhibits included a hybrid Citelis city bus with the BAE Systems drive. Following a series of demonstrations in several European countries, some of the first orders are from the Paris operator RATP.
Mercedes-Benz and Setra occupied adjacent stands. Along with the Citaro city bus another important exhibit was a Travego luxury coach with a Euro 6 engine. Hartmut Schick, head of Daimler Buses was predicting a slight increase in his company’s sales in 2011, compared with the previous year, but said conditions in a number of markets were still difficult. Speaking of North America, he says the city bus sector is weak and there is no support for hybrid buses. On the other hand, coach sales have improved with Setra now able to offer two models in different market sectors.
The third generation of Mercedes-Benz fuel cell buses with hybrid drive systems are running in Hamburg, with more due to enter service shortly in Switzerland and Italy. The company says the fuel cells are more efficient and therefore vehicles require fewer storage tanks.
I stayed in Busworld Kortrijk for the duration but still did not have enough time to get around to all the exhibitors. The next edition is in October 2013, which gives BUSRide readers time to start saving to come to Belgium and this incredible exhibition.

Doug Jack is with Transport Resources in the United Kingdom.

A Belkommunmash low floor trolleybus negotiates heavy traffic with the Kremlin in the background.

The distance from London to Moscow is 1,560 miles, less than half the distance from London to New York. Yet the three-and-a-half-hour flight takes one to a completely different and fascinating part of the world.
I made the trip this year because I could not pass up the opportunity to visit Comtrans, said to be the largest commercial vehicle exhibition in the world, held in the Crocus Expo Center adjacent to a motorway that encircles Moscow. The journey from the center of the city was an opportunity to observe the various types of vehicles in Moscow.
Like many former Soviet cities, Moscow has an extensive metro network with some of the most splendid stations anywhere in the world. There are also trams and trolleybuses. Although buses are used on some city center routes, they generally act as feeders to the metro and trolleybus networks. The services are frequent, but a typical cross-city journey may involve two or three changes of transport at major hubs.

A Scania with a Chinese built Higer A80 luxury coach body.

In the old days it was practically impossible to obtain any statistics about the Russian market, but that has changed, thanks to ASM Holding. It reported that registrations of new buses and coaches of all sizes rose to 23,227 units in the first half of 2011 compared with 18,229 in the first half of 2010. That represented a healthy increase of 27.4 percent, but it sent out an alarming signal to the domestic manufacturers.
Their share of new registrations declined from 74.35 percent to 55.04 percent. All the gains were by new imports, some assembled in Russia, and a small number of used imports. This last category included relatively young coaches still carrying the names and colors of their previous German owners.
Registrations include all sizes of buses

A low-entry RoAZ city bus built in Rostov-on-Don is powered by a Deutz engine.

with a large number of minibuses that typically seat 16-18 passengers in a very cramped layout. They run on fixed routes at regular intervals in the cities, charging higher fares than full-size buses and trolleybuses because they offer faster point-to-point journeys. With minimal driving standards and little control from the authorities, they seem to be very popular.
There are various reasons for the rise in imports to Russia. Geographically, Chinese and Korean bus builders are closer than domestic builders in European Russia to customers in the vast Asian region of the country. Six of China’s leading bus and coach manufacturers made this point very clear. Between them they added models in all the main segments of the Russian market from large luxury coaches and midi coaches to low-floor city buses.
Another factor is the municipalities that buy most of the city buses are short on money. Although this situation is improving, they have tended to buy basic 25-foot vehicles with high floors.
With five subsidiaries that build different sizes and types of buses and coaches, the GAZ Group is by far the largest domestic manufacturer. One of those subsidiaries, LiAZ, the Likino Bus Factory, has developed full low floor rigid and articulated buses with

A hybrid NefAZ bus with a Cummins Euro 5 engine and Voith drive system.

the option of compressed natural gas (CNG) engines.
Russia will move to Euro 4 engine emission standards for vehicles put into service beginning January 2012. Many of the importers can already meet the more strict Euro 5 standards. The step from Euro 3 to Euro 4 proved significant, because there was a change from traditional mechanical engines to electronic control systems.
With Russia aspiring to Western standards in all sorts of products, the major challenge for the GAZ Group is to update the powertrains in all its models. It also sees the need for new and more stylish designs. Sadly, most GAZ designs look rather plain and dated. It is hardly a defense to say that vehicles have to stand up to tough operating conditions, because importers are winning significant market share.
The largest factory in the GAZ Group is the Pavlovsky Avto Zavod, or PAZ. It builds up to 10,000 medium size buses per year, seen all over Russia in urban, rural and school services, work transport and for the armed services. As the same boxy shape has been around for years, it was good to see a more stylish midi coach with a large one-piece windscreen and bonded glazing.

A Volgabus body on a Cummins powered Avia chassis.

Transport for workers in the oil, gas and mineral industries in the remote northern regions is a major challenge in Russia. Bus travel requires traversing rough gravel roads in all climates. The largest vehicle on the GAZ stand was a rugged Ural truck chassis/cab, with three driven axles and air suspension to improve the ride quality, along with double glazing and additional heating and ventilation for the tough Arctic conditions.
KamAZ is the largest truck builder in Russia, with Daimler having a 15 percent holding. On buses, KamAZ works closely with the Neftekamsk Avto Zavod, trading as NefAZ. One of itsexhibits was a hybrid bus, using a Cummins Euro 5 engine and a Voith DIWA hybrid drive system. Russian manufacturers have announced two or three other hybrid buses previously, but the concept is still very much in its infancy.
It is hard to understand why Russia wants hybrid buses with so many cities still running large trolleybus systems inherited from Soviet days. Three or four Russian manufacturers build in small volumes, as well MAZ and Belkommunmash from neighboring Belarus. A number of low-floor trolleybuses run the streets of Moscow, with a greater number of old high floor models still in use.
Even the older vehicles appeared well maintained and free from minor accident damage. Labor rates are still relatively low in Russia. The larger bus fleets have central workshops where they can carry out the heaviest of repair and maintenance work. Russian fleets have not caught on to the Western philosophy of service exchange units, which minimizes vehicle downtime.
Volzhanin is one of the smaller bus builders, which trades as Volgabus. It offered a very interesting example of international collaboration at its stand. Several years ago Ashok Leyland of India bought Avia, a manufacturer of light and medium trucks in the Czech Republic. Volgabus had taken an Avia chassis powered by a front-mounted Cummins engine and fitted a simple body intended for suburban and rural transport. A large segment in Russia uses vehicles of this type. It also caught the attention of two executives from a factory of Ashok Leyland in Dubai. One can hardly get more international than that.
Russia is becoming an increasingly important market for Western European manufacturers. Many private companies want top quality products and are prepared to pay for them. One of the most popular makes, Neoplan, earned the Bus of the Year Award for its Cityliner coaches.
Russia permits vehicles up to 49-feet long on three axles, which are well suited for service on the long wide streets. One of the vehicles on the MAN stands was a tri-axle interurban coach. The floor is about 32 inches above ground with a reasonable amount of luggage space in under floor lockers.
Many of the smaller stands offered a wide variety of components and equipment, much of it imported. Suppliers came namely from Western Europe, Turkey and China. While Russia has undoubtedly opened up over the last 20 years, it is still not the easiest country in which to do business. It is in need of strong, well-connected local partners. Nonetheless, with registrations for all vehicle sizes forecasted to exceed 55,000 this year, no one can ignore Russia. BR

Doug Jack is with Transport Resources in the United Kingdom.

It is once again time to bring BUSRide readers up to date on the activities of Irizar, a very interesting and progressive company headquartered in the Basque country of northern Spain in the small town of Ormaiztegui. It is a beautiful region, which prides itself on being the workshop of the country.

Twenty years ago Irizar was one of a number of Spanish companies building inter-urban and touring coach bodywork on all the main makes of European chassis. At that time, it was building around 250 bodies per year, and there were serious concerns about its ability to survive in the industry.

New management came in and quickly decided the key to long-term survival would be as a global player. In Europe that meant entering as many markets as possible, usually in conjunction with Scania, keen on becoming a more widely recognized coach brand without having to design and develop its own complete coach products.

Outside of Europe, the new Irizar team looked at countries with a tradition of people traveling by coach, usually due to usually inadequate rail networks and airfares beyond reach of most passengers.

Since 2008, Irizar has operated in Spain as an independent cooperative, a structure only retained in Spain where the company currently employs 735 people. Another 2,465 work in normal limited companies in China, Morocco, Brazil, Mexico, India and South Africa.

Irizar has four subsidiaries in Spain. Hispacold is a leading manufacturer of air conditioning. Masats makes doors, luggage lockers and other components. Both supply not only Irizar, but also many of the company’s competitors. JEMA is a leading company in the power electronics sector, and INT is its latest acquisition, a company that produces information systems currently in use on trains, but with potential applications for coach drivers and passengers.

I talked to Gotzon Gomez, export sales director, and one of eight Irizar board members in Spain. An industrial engineer by training, he joined Irizar in 1996 and spent his first two years in production. He moved to Brazil in 1998 when Irizar established its subsidiary in that country. His experience as managing director also included the establishment of Irizar South Africa, supplied from the plant in Brazil. Gomez is also responsible for the introduction of the first Irizar. He returned to the headquarters in September 2009 to take up his current position.

Last year, despite difficult conditions in a number of markets, because of the global financial crisis, Irizar still managed to build around 1,400 bodies in Ormaiztegui.

The plant is highly efficient, building four main families of coach bodies on a wide variety of chassis in various lengths and heights.
The range starts with the i4 inter-urban family. The long-running New Century and the new i6 bodies fill the main volume segments in the coach industry. The PB, which stands for New Project in the Basque language, is the top sector coach body.

The assembly floor consists of three parallel lines on one side, a wide avenue through the middle, and two and a half parallel lines on the other side. In a highly organized logistics operation, vehicles delivering components and sub-assemblies on a just-in-time basis to the stations where they are required use the avenue. This saves time requires accurate timing and strong discipline on the part of suppliers.

There are 14 stages on the main lines and they move once every 24 hours. The fourth to sixth stages have paint spray booths, capable of carrying out some very elaborate schemes, including dramatic graduated colors.

The factories in Brazil, China, Mexico, Morocco and South Africa build products that are broadly the same as those in Spain, although not necessarily the full range of the parent factory.

The Moroccan plant also builds the Irea city bus body. Vehicles produced in India and mounted on Ashok Leyland chassis are more heavily adapted for local conditions. Gomez says Irizar has the flexibility to build to maximum widths of 96-inch, 98.5-inch and 102-inch, depending on regulations in its many markets.

Irizar can also adapt to requirements in individual markets. For instance in South America, customers on long distance coaches prefer a much softer seat than in Europe. The factory has even built sleeper models with 16 fully flat beds in a tri-axle 49-foot coach. Almost as comfortable are coaches with two large reclining seats on one side of the gangway and single seats on the other side.

Although Irizar builds city bus bodywork only in Morocco, it is working on a project with JEMA, academic partners, and the bus company in San Sebastian, to produce an all-electric bus, with a target introduction of 2015. Irizar feels that hybrid buses might just be an interim stage. Battery technology is improving all the time, and offers zero emission operation on city streets.

Last year, despite financial problems around the world, Irizar built 4,200 bodies, despite many of their smaller customers finding it practically impossible to obtain finance for fleet renewal. There was a 20-percent improvement in output in the first half of 2011, compared with the previous half year, but Gomez is still cautious with his forecasts. While he thought there would be an overall improvement, there was weak demand in some of the company’s important markets in Southern Europe.

Two years ago Irizar launched integral versions of its i4 interurban coach and the PB and since introduced the new i6. Although the Century coach family continues in production, Irizar’s current practice is to use model numbers rather than names. Gomez says the Irizar brand is all-important.

I asked him why Irizar had taken the decision to develop its own complete integral vehicles. After all, it has a good working relationship with all the main chassis manufacturers, particularly in Spain, where the company regularly enjoys a 40-percent share of the interurban and coach market.

“We are increasingly finding they want to sell their own complete coaches,” says Gomez. “It can be difficult being both partners and competitors. We have customers who are loyal to Irizar, therefore we cannot run the risk of being shut out of any of our markets. We will continue to work with the chassis manufacturers in Spain, but will develop the integral range on a market-by-market basis. We think the integral product is complementary, which will help us increase our overall share in a number of countries.”

For European customers, Irizar is using DAF (Paccar) engines, which have an excellent reputation for durability and economy. ZF supplies the gearboxes and axles. The integral model saves weight compared with a chassis and body combination. This is an important factor, especially on touring coaches with large baggage loads.

I asked Gomez if Irizar had any plans for the United States. A number of years ago the company supplied 80 to 90 bodies on a chassis built in the U.S. but proved less than ideal for the market.

Since then, Irizar has have opened a factory in Mexico to build integral coaches. Paccar will take around 6,000 DAF engines from the Netherlands this year, for Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks. Some of the essential building blocks for a U.S. coach are falling into place.

“The issue is not technical, but strategic,” says Gomez. “We realize that units like ZF axles are not well known in the United States, but there are other potential suppliers who would be more acceptable. DAF engines meet EPA-10 and a service network is in place through Paccar. There are no tariff barriers between Mexico and the States. In the medium term, I am sure that we will go into the U.S., but it must be a step-by-step process.”

It had long been a dream of Dr. Ferdinand Piëch, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen, to create a European automotive giant, active in all products from cars through to heavy commercial vehicles.
While some industry observers said that he wanted to rival Daimler, compared with Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen has a far more extensive range of cars, through its various brands.
After many twists and turns Piëch finally achieved his goal. He had secured a controlling interest in MAN, having previously achieved the same position in Scania, two of Europe’s best-known commercial vehicle brands.
Scania, an old established Swedish company based near Stockholm, has a well-deserved reputation for the quality and particularly the driveability of its buses and trucks. It also has a very long and proud record of profitability, even through the recent financial crisis that severely affected many markets. For the first six months of 2011, Scania reported 15 percent return on sales.
Although Scania only builds trucks and buses, for many years it had a joint venture with Volkswagen, importing its cars and vans into Sweden until 2002. The following year, Volkswagen bought 34 percent of Scania and increased its stake to nearly 70 percent in 2008.
Scania assembles interurban and coach chassis in a compact unit attached to the main truck facility in Sweden, with bus chassis assembled at its Omni plant in Northern Poland. The company also assembles some bus and coach chassis at its factories in Brazil and Mexico. Built to the same dimensions and standards as those in Sweden, these separate plants can help each other in sudden times of high demand.
Headquartered in Munich, Germany, MAN claims to have been engineering the future since 1758. The company is best known for its extensive range of buses and trucks built not only in Germany, but also Poland and Turkey, with joint ventures for trucks in China and India.
MAN launched an unsuccessful bid to take over Scania in 2006. Volkswagen quickly bought up to 20 percent of MAN, which bought just over 14 percent of the voting shares of Scania.

The Neoplan Cityliner has proven popular in Europe.

In March 2007, Volkswagen raised its stake to 29.9 percent in MAN and there was speculation it planned to merge MAN and Scania.
The first serious move by MAN was unexpected. Volkswagen assembled trucks and bus chassis in Rosende, Brazil, but brought in a very high percentage of each product.  Suppliers made the engines, gearboxes, axles, frames and truck cabs.
This was an important step in MAN’s ambitions to become a global player. But this would be a completely different type of operation from the MAN and Scania factories in Europe, which manufactures a very high percentage of vehicles in-house.
Volkswagen announced in June its plans to increase its shareholding in MAN, with the Executive and Supervisory Boards rejecting its initial offer.
However, on July 4th, an easy date for you to remember, Volkswagen announced that it had secured more than 56 percent of the shares in MAN.
Prior to that, Volkswagen had been encouraging both companies to look for synergies. They suggested that there could be savings in research and development, purchasing, and perhaps on some components.
The directors of MAN and Scania were both opposed to any higher degree of integration, because they valued their independence and customer loyalty. In fairness to Volkswagen, it has successfully managed a large portfolio of car brands, including Volkswagen and Audi in Germany, Skoda in the Czech Republic, Seat in Spain and the famous Bentley in the United Kingdom. It has also recently taken control of Porsche.
There may be some commonality in platforms, but each brand has its own dealers throughout Europe, and even further afield in some instances.
On buses and coaches, distinction between the MAN and Scania philosophies is quite clear.
MAN builds complete integral city buses in Poland, available with diesel, gas or hybrid drivelines; and interurban and medium segment coaches, including some Neoplan models, in a factory in Ankara, Turkey. It builds top segment luxury coaches in Plauen, Germany, and promotes them under the premium Neoplan brand. All MAN structures are in steel to thoroughly protect against corrosion. There are also chassis derivatives of most models, built in a factory at Salzgitter in Germany, ironically not far from the Volkswagen headquarters in Wolfsburg.
MAN is very good at packaging the drivetrain on its low-floor city buses, benefiting from engines smaller than Scania. Their horizontal position lends to a superior interior layout. With the exception of midibuses, Scania has an equally extensive a product range manufactured and supplied in another way. The company is principally a supplier of chassis and works with a wide number of bodybuilders around the world. It builds city and suburban buses under the Omni brand in Northern Poland. Totally different from MAN, the structures are of bolted aluminium, which is much more expensive than steel, resistant to corrosion and lighter in weight, which saves on fuel.
The manufacture of interurban coaches for European markets is primarily sub-contracted to the Finnish bodybuilder, Lahti under the OmniExpress brand. Scania has also collaborated closely with Irizar of Spain on interurban and luxury coaches in a number of European markets. More recently, Scania has started to import Higer coachwork from China as a complete Scania product for the medium segment of the European coach market.

This version of the Lion’s City bus is used on rural routes.

Scania is pursuing a strategy to gradually reduce the number of bodybuilders and strengthen relationships with those it sees as longer-term strategic partners.
With Volkswagen holding a controlling interest in MAN and Scania, an investigation by the European competition authorities will ensure the two companies do not have a dominant position in any of the European markets, which could distort competition — an unlikely risk, considering Daimler, Volvo-Renault and Iveco-Irisbus. Alexander Dennis, VDL and Van Hool also hold strong positions in their domestic markets.
Volkswagen has had representatives on the board of Scania for some time, and knows how that business works. The reasonable profits by Scania in recent years from its bus and coach operations have not escaped its notice. On the other hand, MAN has noted that its bus and coach operations vary from slight profits to losses, which, although not horrific, are nevertheless a cause for concern. There have been costs in rationalizing the model range, but should now start to bear fruit.
Volkswagen will be able to achieve savings in research, development and purchasing. MAN and Scania are both well down the line on developing engines which will meet Euro 6 emission standards that come into force for vehicles licensed on or after Jan. 1, 2014. Until now, both have preferred to meet emission standards by Exhaust Gas Recirculation, whereas all the other main European players use selective Catalytic Reduction.
Electronics and Telematics are potential areas for research collaboration. Sharing those development costs would make sound sense.
It is too early to say how long the competition authorities will take to assess the potential merger, but if all goes well, they could give MAN and Scania approval by the time of Busworld Kortrijk in October.
While MAN and Scania make most of their own major components, the combined negotiating power of both companies will be more than enough to send shivers through suppliers of many smaller proprietary parts, for instance, wheels and tires. Imagine securing those accounts.

Doug Jack is with Transport Resources in the United Kingdom.

Five years ago in BUSRide, I wrote on my visit to the Mercedes Benz plant in Hoşdere just west of Istanbul in the small part of Turkey that lies in Europe.

It is hard to realize the automotive industry in this country only began in the 1960s. Mercedes-Benz was in at the start with local partners, building its first bus in 1968 and exporting two years later.

The original factory was in a cramped industrial area of Istanbul before moving its final assembly to Hoşdere in 1995. When I first visited, it was in open countryside with only an army camp as a near neighbor. Mercedes Benz invested further to move all manufacturing operations to Hoşdere by 2005. The company now occupies 430,000-square-yards and includes an in-house electricity generating plant.

When I last visited in 2006, I did not hesitate in describing it as the best bus factory in the world. At that time, it was building a range of buses and coaches on a line system and docking stations so that luxury coaches requiring more work and material would not hold up city buses with simpler specifications.

I returned to Hoşdere at the beginning of June to see it is even better than before. A combination of factors makes me confident about my earlier opinion. Let me explain what has happened since my previous visit.

The Hoşdere factory works closely with the two main German factories, namely the Mercedes Benz city bus plant in Mannheim and the Setra factory in Ulm. Setra was already building some interurban versions of the Citaro bus range.

The decision came down for the three factories should work even more closely, and to common manufacturing standards to better able to handle major international orders.

As part of this strategy, production capacity at Hoşdere increased to 4,000 vehicles per year, which exceeded the capabilities of the docking system. In any case, the large air-operated docking platforms, worn and needing replacement, prompted the management team to undertake a complete appraisal of the production process.

An inspector uses a mirror on the end of a stick to look underneath a vehicle.

The Hoşdere factory builds four basic models with a number of variations of each. The Conecto is a low-floor city bus available in solo and articulated versions. The Intouro is a multi-purpose coach. The very popular Tourismo coach features two axles on the 40-foot model; three axles up to 45-foot, 6-inch. The Travego is top of the range, designed principally for express coach services in Turkey with enormous luggage capacity under the high floor.

All the vehicles feature complete integral structures, carefully designed to maximize strength and minimize weight.

To treat against corrosion, the structures receive a total immersion in large chemical treatment tanks. Small holes drilled in pillars allow the liquid to penetrate the insides of the steel beams. No further welding takes place after this stage.

The anti-corrosion plant works around the clock. While it might seem expensive, with the high volumes the treatment system makes sound economic sense. The price of mild steel in Europe is currently just under $1,000 per ton, compared with aluminium at around $6,500 per ton. The treated frames structures come out ready for paint in any color combination or standard white for application of transfers by customers.

To move the structures around, the factory designed electric motors to fit in the location of the front and rear axles. These portable lifts are in two heights, one high enough for employees to work on the underside of a structure.

Vehicles proceed rearward down two parallel lines and transversely at the end for installation of complete drivelines brought in from Germany. They then move forward on two parallel lines until the final stage for the installation of seats and final inspection.

The massive logistics store located next to the assembly lines supplies as many as 20,000 items at any one time — as small as a fastener or as large as a complete engine.

The store picks parts for each vehicle three to four hours before required on the lines, places them in trolleys for a tow into position. They also regularly replenish the line-side racks of fast moving parts such as nuts, bolts and fasteners. The lean system ensures workers at each station will have all the materials they need for their allotted 60 minutes before the vehicle moves to the next station and the next trolley of parts.

Assembly workers do not walk through the factory carrying parts from stores. Working instead to Japanese Kaizan quality principles, the lean operation creates space round the vehicles, which reduces the risk of any accidental damage during assembly. Notice boards situated at various stages along the lines monitor quality, rectification of any defects, and present other information to help employees. Suggestions are also strongly encouraged.

A super high-deck tri-axle Travego coach straight out of the paint shop. Note the homemade electric carriers for moving shells.

Despite the economic crisis, the factory built more than 3,000 vehicles last year. Fortunately, Turkish banks are more tightly regulated than those in some Western European countries. Production was building up to a target of more than 3,300 this year, with output scheduled to rise to around 13-14 vehicles per day in the second half of the year. The general yardstick in Western Europe is one bus per employee per annum. Yet, Hoşdere is exceeding two per annum.

The next surprise is the headcount. The factory is building complete vehicles, including a wide range of seats with total manufacturing headcount of 1,900, of which around 1,500 are blue collar. The average age is 30 to 35 years, and around 72 percent have a higher education, mainly in technical colleges.

The total cost of hourly labor in Turkey is around one fifth of that of Germany or most other Western European counties. The company provides bus transportation to and from the factory for the majority of workers, and offers free meals, as well as extensive sport and recreation facilities for employees to enjoy with their families on weekends.

A more recent addition is a well-equipped laboratory with equipment capable of testing practically any component that goes into the vehicles. The facility is also open to suppliers wanting to improve their products.

Last year, Hoşdere produced nearly 1,800 vehicles for export. Most went to the demanding markets of Western Europe. On the Turkish market, two out of every three coaches carry the Mercedes-Benz badge.

However, Hoşdere also has a research and development center that employs a further 300 people, and not just on projects for the bus factory. Hoşdere is also the Center of Excellence in Daimler Buses for jigs and tools.

The timing of the improvements to Hoşdere and the new manufacturing processes may well be inspired. The price of fuel is still very high in most European countries. The future for buses and coaches therefore looks very good. If my calculations are correct, Hoşdere is in a prime position to supply top quality products at competitive prices.

If you think I am biased, the management also invited a very good friend and business associate. He spent much of his career building and selling buses and coaches and has been in many factories around the world. As we left Hoşdere, he simply said, “That was incredible – that is the benchmark for building buses.”

The new Citaro articulated buses by Mercedes Benz can handle a large flow of passengers.

The interior of a 40-fooj18t Citaro features a very comfortable driver’s seat.

Having built nearly 35,000 versions of its popular Citaro city bus range since 1998, Mercedes-Benz raised the bar with its launch of the new generation Citaro in May from Mannheim, Germany.

Before I go any further, let me clear up possible confusion about brands. The parent company is Daimler AG, of which one of the subsidiaries is Daimler Buses. Some senior executives in that organization have global responsibilities that include Orion in North America, the Polomex joint venture in Mexico, and a very large chassis manufacturing operation in Brazil.

The wholly-owned subsidiary, EvoBus GmbH, EvoBus, with factories in France, Germany, Spain and Turkey, sells Mercedes-Benz city buses and Setra luxury coaches.

Beginning January 2014, the new and more stringent Euro 6 emission limits will be standard, a factor that helped persuade Mercedes-Benz to develop the new Citaro.

Looking forward, the interior space of an articulated Citaro is ample.

“The general view is this will take a combination of EGR and SCR,” says Hartmut Schick, head of Daimler Buses. “We will need a chemical factory at the back of every bus.”

Schick says the company wanted to include safety and weight-saving features as well.

The Citaro launched with two models and has evolved into a wide range of models needing replacement as Euro 6 takes effect.
Andreas Renschler, a member of the Daimler AG Board of Management and responsible for Commercial Vehicles, hosted the launch in the historic plant in Mannheim where Carl Benz built the first bus in 1895. Renschler described it as the unofficial capital of bus production. He says the world needs the bus because it is unbeatable in at least three ways. First, no other form of transport comes close to the bus in terms of safety. Second, buses out-perform other forms of transport in terms of eco-friendliness. The CO2 emissions of a modern coach are a third lower than the equivalent figure for trains. Thirdly, buses are incredibly flexible. They do not need tracks or stations and they had unbeatable whole life cycle costs.

He predicted growth in the bus business because more and more people are moving to urban centers. In just 20 years, around 60 percent of the global population will live in towns and cities. Buses already have a 46 percent share of the market, making them the backbone of public transport.

Renschler says Mercedes-Benz buses are universally reliable, as the company sets global benchmarks for new technologies.

Mercedes Benz made the engine and auxiliaries in the new Citaro very accessible.

“Our buses lead in terms of active and passive safety,” he says. “No other manufacturer has more vehicles on the road with alternative drive systems, including nearly 3,200 hybrid buses from Orion and Mercedes-Benz, and the totally emission-free Citaro FuelCELL hybrid buses.”

He described the new Citaro as a design that will grace any city street, a cab that drivers will never want to leave, and an unparalleled safety package.

While the new Citaro looks similar to the current model, it shows many innovations. The structure still built of mild steel are fully immersed in chemicals that resistance corrosion.

Although not a legal requirement on European city buses, the structure meets the new and more stringent rollover legislation for coaches, which will come into force in 2014. Though the gross vehicle is 200 pounds lighter, it will increase 60 pounds with the installation of the Euro 6 engines.

The driver sits at a lower level in the current Citaro, which is not ideal for eye-to-eye contact with standing passengers. On the new Citaro the raised platform in his compartment provides space for batteries underneath, which at the same time improves weight distribution. The strengthened frame beneath the driver gives him protection in the event of a frontal collision.

The new Citaro has independent front suspension to enhance ride and handling, as well as Electronic Braking System and the option of Electronic Stability Program. The latter will become mandatory on coaches, but Mercedes-Benz also believes it could be beneficial on city buses, especially on snow and ice.

The new Citaro will not replace the current generation overnight. There are nearly 30 variations of the family, with low entry and full low floor layouts, 34-, 40-, 45- and 60-foot articulated. The four axle Capacity is performing well in Istanbul. Options include diesel, CNG, hybrid and fuel cell hybrid, not to mention left and right hand drive.

Transit authorities are already placing orders for the new Citaro with deliveries to commence in September. The two ranges will continue in parallel production to accommodate orders and tenders for the current Citaro family as well. The changeover is likely to take two years, leading up to the introduction of Euro 6.

The 40- and 60-foot articulated pre-production models were available for demonstration drives. Some of the local road surfaces were quite rough, but I travelled on the 40-foot model and was most impressed by the ride and comfort. The interior trim was practical and easy to clean, formed in ABS to car quality standards. Care had been taken to use light but strong materials to save weight. There were plenty of handrails for standing passengers. A person in a wheelchair could get on and off the bus by a ramp at the second door. The doors operate electrically, saving weight and maintenance.

The timing of the launch of the new Citaro looks good. Renschler says the current market environment in some European countries is difficult.

“However, we have been in the business for more than 100 years,” he says. “We always look beyond economic cycles.”
He predicted that the bus business would pick up from the middle of this year, and that Daimler would sell more than 40,000 buses and chassis this year (excluding North American school buses).

Planning is difficult in the large domestic German market. Public authorities normally go to tender at the beginning of the calendar year, pressuring delivery on orders before the end of the year; which means output in Mannheim is traditionally lower during the first half of the year.

Mercedes-Benz has responded to the cyclical nature of the business in a very clever way. It reached agreement with the workforce to pay a standard weekly rate. Normally, they work fewer hours than the standard rate in the first half of the year. The company can now bank those hours to use during the second half of the year, when the workload requires extra hours. This suits the workers because they have a regular weekly income, and it suits the company because it can respond when customers want delivery on tight lead times.

The narrower European maximum width of 98.5-inch makes the new Citaro is unsuitable for North American markets. However, Orion has access to Daimler’s global bus design and production technology, so some of the innovations might filter through to your market in due course.

The first major public unveiling of the new Citaro will likely take place at Busworld Kortrijk later this year, where other European manufacturers also will introduce new products. So why not come across the pond to Belgium and see what we are doing in Europe?

Doug Jack is with Transport Resources in the United Kingdom.

Built to a Mack design, the Metropol was Scania’s first integral bus.

Headquartered in Södertälje, Sweden, Scania is one of the oldest and most respected brands in the European commercial vehicle industry. The company dates back to 1891 with the Vagnfabriks family who built railway carriages and wagons following the dramatic expansion of the Swedish railway network in 1880s.

Scania opened in 1900 in Malmö in the south of Sweden. It produced its first car in 1901 and was building its own engines and light trucks by 1905. Although Scania enjoyed considerable success, it lacked resources and merged with the Aktiebolagest and Södertelges families of the Vabis enterprise in 1911 to form Scania-Vabis. The early trucks were sturdy models built to withstand the Swedish climate.

The very first Scania bus, circa 1911.

One chassis featured an enclosed passenger compartment with the roof extended forward to create a canopy over the driver sitting behind a full-height vertical windshield without protection on either side.

In the early 20th century European buses were predominately on high truck-based chassis before the industry moved toward specialized designs that featured lower frames and maximum space for passengers. Customers demanded larger and more powerful buses and Scania responded in 1932 with the strong Bulldog.

Although Scania built some vehicles with heavy oil engines, its first successful diesel appeared in 1936. Its bus output of buses surpassed trucks while its production of cars ceased around 1927.

One of many Polish-built Scania double-deck buses running in London, passing a Volvo outside Euston Station.

In the early 1950s, Scania crossed the Atlantic and struck a deal with Mack to build the Metropol integral city bus in Sweden. The Metropol had an eight-cylinder engine mounted transversely at the rear and retained its typical American styling, with small windows above the main side windows.

The Metropol, with its long American wheelbase, was not ideally suited to Swedish conditions, and the company developed a shorter version known as the Capitol, the first Scania fitted with air suspension.
By this time, Scania had successfully exported buses and trucks to Brazil and established a factory to manufacture chassis and engines, with an increasing percentage of Brazilian-built content. Buses and coaches came with the option of front or rear mounted engines.

In 1966, with Sweden and Denmark at the forefront of developments to reduce noise and emissions, especially in vehicles working in urban areas, Scania launched the CR76 city bus, a totally new integral design without any influence from Mack. This was a landmark model with a lower floor and an exceptionally quiet rear-mounted diesel engine. Scania updated it to the CR111. The “silent” bus launched in 1971.

The move in Sweden from right- to left-hand drive created a boom in demand for new buses and coaches. In 1968 the company purchased one of the largest bodybuilders, based in Katrineholm, about 60 miles west of Södertälje. After its production of integral vehicles, Scania started building chassis assembly in 1969.

With Sweden’s concern for the environment becoming more significant, Scania looked to alternative and renewable fuels. It introduced the first city bus to run on ethanol in 1986. Scania has since sold more than 700 of these buses in Sweden, principally in Stockholm. At first fuel production came from the European Union’s “lake” of surplus wine. More recently the Swedes have found a way of producing fuel from the sap of pine trees.

With the factory in Katrineholm losing money at the start of this century, Scania brought its chassis assembly into a dedicated unit in the main truck plant while transferring the assembly of bodywork to a facility at Slupsk in the north of Poland, benefiting from much lower labor rates than those in Sweden.

This decision transformed the fortunes of Scania bus operations and everyone in the main factory began to think in terms of truck and bus.

Scania is an incredibly disciplined engineering and manufacturing company. For instance, the company makes five-, six- and eight-cylinder engines all with the same cylinder dimensions, which enables Scania to benefit from economies of scale and keep its parts count to a minimum. On a coach chassis, up to 80 percent of the units share a commonality with the truck family.

City buses are different because they require drop center rear axles and fully automatic gearboxes from specialists such as ZF. A remarkable range of products incorporate combinations of three front modules consisting of the front axle, suspension and driving controls with rear modules which carry the axle, suspension and driveline. For instance, by marrying a low height front module with a twin axle rear module, Scania can offer a double deck coach chassis.

Scania assembles interurban and luxury coach chassis in Sweden and city buses in Poland, as well as at factories in Brazil and Mexico. For a number of years the policy has been to introduce new models simultaneously in all its factories. If it must fulfil a major order on short notice, it can supply chassis can from more than one factory with identical specifications.

Scania’s main activity is building chassis. It makes its own city bus bodywork in Poland in single and double deck versions. Whereas the factory in Katrinholm had been building in steel, the new Omni range is aluminium: a cleaner and less labor intensive system that also saves weight.

Scania also collaborates with many bodybuilders around the world. Some of them are essential partners, because they hold the key to sales in their domestic markets. Nevertheless, Scania’s relationships with bodybuilders numbered more than 100. Of those, the last 30 are building only in very small numbers, which leads to disproportionate costs.

Melker Jernberg, head of buses and coaches, is tackling this problem by working more closely with a limited number of bodybuilding partners. His program, Strategy 20+, has already produced some interesting results.

Scania has ruled out assembling and manufacturing chassis in China, but has established a close collaboration with Higer, one of the largest bus builders. It imports complete chassis to Higer for use in the highest quality luxury segment at the top of the Chinese market. In 2006, the two companies established a separate unit within the vast Higer factory in Suzhou to build luxury coaches jointly for export markets, including selected countries in Europe. The Scania Higer Touring created a sensation in its debut at Busworld Kortrijk in 2009.

In another example, Scania contracted the Finnish bodybuilder, Lahti, to build the OmniExpress coach.

Although intended primarily for long distance express services in the Nordic countries, customers in several European countries have ordered the same model for private charters and tours.

Jernberg says his ambition is to develop further strategic partnerships, because more and more customers are demanding complete buses and coaches from the same supplier. Although production fell back during the global economic crisis, bus and coach volumes held up much more strongly than trucks, and there is an ambitious target of 15,000 units by 2015.

As a final note, although Scania has no plans to enter the North American market, it signed a major agreement last year with Terex to supply engines, which meet the latest emission standards for installation in construction equipment. It is now establishing parts and service networks throughout the United States to support this valuable contract.

Doug Jack is with Transport Resources in the United Kingdom.

A look across the Alexander Dennis plant at the assembly lines for the double decks.

Alexander Dennis (ADL), the largest bus builder in the United Kingdom, now has its eyes set on creating new sectors in markets with product gaps and opportunities, and need for shorter, genuine buses that offer reliability, durability and longevity. Chief Executive Colin Robertson believes North America could be such a target.

He has held senior executive positions in the construction equipment industry with Terex, based in Connecticut. Robertson returned to his native Scotland in April 2007 to take the helm at Alexander Dennis. He has made significant progress steering the business profitably through a difficult downturn in the British market last year. He says forecasts for this year are looking better, but exports also cushioned the company.

ADL has for many years exported to Hong Kong and more recently to North America. Robertson wants to reduce the risks of dependency on the British market by further developing export strategies and opening up new markets. Continental Europe is also in his sights, where a lot of preparatory work is going on behind the scenes.

ADL has three main activities. Dennis builds chassis in a factory in Guildford, to the west of London. Alexander is an old-established builder of bus bodywork, located in Falkirk, Scotland. The third arm is Plaxton, based in Scarborough in northeast England, the only remaining builder of luxury coachwork in the UK. However, it also builds midi buses to Alexander designs.

Enviro 200 midi-buses in build, clearly showing the aluminum structure with customer names against each bus.

Robertson is very aware that five major groups dominate the British market that normally account for around 70 percent of annual new bus sales. The decision by any one of them to cut back on fleet renewal in any year has an impact on manufacturing. Other factors can also affect sales, such as the introduction of emissions legislation, which inevitably drives up prices and causes cyclical purchasing.

It is probably fair to say as a volume producer, quantity rather than quality was the driving principle at the Alexander factory. The large British bus companies drove hard bargains on prices and specifications. The vehicles were always structurally sound, but some of the interior components were not world class.

Reflecting on his first year at ADL, Robertson was probably only half joking when he told me he had become fed up going to visit customers wearing a flak jacket and hard hat.

“We had to change the whole culture in the factory,” he says. “We had good control over man hours and material flow — we still do — but we knew that we had to improve some components, as well as our inspection and test procedures.”

Fit into a building just over 50 years old, the company has completely modernized the production process, investing in a cleaner workspace with the latest equipment. Assembly follows in a U-shaped flow with parallel lines for assembly of the bolted aluminum structures. The buses then pass through modern paint booths before returning in the opposite direction down the finishing lines.

Upon completion, every bus enters a cabin for a drenching in highly pressurized water to show up any leaks, and driven over a section of rough paving to show up any loose component. One result of this testing has been the introduction of more durable electrical connections.

Enviro200 midi-buses, pre- and post-painting. Some British customers still prefer traditional roller destination blinds for clarity.

The company also has invested heavily in product support, empowering its staff to put the customer first. ADL has a team of mobile service engineers for customers suffering a problem. An engineer will arrive with his diagnostic equipment and stay with the vehicle until it is ready to go back into service.

ADL is the largest producer of hybrid buses in Europe. After some early trials, the company teamed with BAE Systems to supply the series hybrid drive systems. By the end of 2011 more than 350 units will be in service in the United Kingdom. Most are double-deck buses for London and other cities around the country, with some single deck midi-buses.

Double-decks a speciality
Double-deck buses and midi buses are Alexander Dennis specialties, and Robertson is very keen on the concept. The company has supplied double decks in large quantity over many years to Hong Kong, as well as North America. They run in Vancouver, Toronto, New York, Washington D.C., Las Vegas, San Francisco and Seattle. Working with ElDorado at its assembly facility in Riverside, CA enabled ADL to supply double-deck buses that comply with Buy America regulations.

“We would like to sell more in North America and as part of that process we will introduce a stylish new look for our three-axle Enviro 500 later this year,” says Robertson. “Look at any city, the problem is apparent — space, or rather the lack of it. A 40-foot double-deck bus has the same footprint as a conventional single deck bus and takes up the same amount of space as two or three cars, but can carry upwards of 80 people on comfortable seats.”

He says the real issue is about winning back the space in a way that passengers enjoy, while also introducing a real incremental revenue earner.

“Double-deck buses offer a multiple solution,” says Robertson. “They have increased passenger ridership and revenue everywhere in North America they have been introduced.”

ADL also is Europe’s leading builder of midi buses by a long way with almost 16,000 sold to date. Twenty years ago the first units were about 28-foot long with a Cummins engine mounted in line at the rear and driving through an Allison fully automatic gearbox to the rear axle. The passenger entrance was ahead of the front axle, directly under the supervision of the driver. The short wheelbase meant that they were highly maneuverable.

Designed for a 10-year life cycle with their robust structures, many lasted much longer. They were inexpensive to buy and maintain, and often used on routes with insufficient numbers of passengers to justify full size heavy-duty, single-deck buses. Others helped to improve the frequency of services, for instance running every 10 minutes to replace a large bus that ran every 15 minutes.

ADL has developed steadily up to the present Enviro200, offering a full range of stylish and popular midi buses from 29 to 37 feet, with seating layouts from 20 to 41 feet. A 53-degree steering lock angle contributes to their maneuverbility and excellent turning radius. The floor ahead of the rear axle is only one step above the ground. Because the wheels and tires are smaller entry and exit is very easy. Cummins has introduced compact but powerful 4-cylinder engines which fit neatly under the rearmost row of seats.

In North America, ADL had supplied some of the previous ALX200 Dart midi-buses through Thomas Built Buses, while in its pre-ADL days, Plaxton sold some Dart chassis with Pointer bodywork to Canada.

“Our latest Enviro200 buses offer real value for money, and performance,” says Robertson. “They have a track record and provenance second to none. Equally important, the time is right for a new range of vehicles that have big bus characteristics and life cycles that extend comfortably to 12 to 15 years. Also, with oil around $100 a barrel, fuel economy and efficiency have become a much higher priority.”

The Enviro200 fits in between cutaways and full size buses, with the benefits of very easy accessibility and maneuverability. With a Cummins Allison driveline, the Enviro200 will go straight into any North American fleet. Another advantage is the aluminum structure, which is light weight, totally resistant to corrosion and fully recyclable.

ADL now has an annual turnover approaching $500 million. It is in an interesting position, being small enough to respond quickly to market demand but large enough to benefit from economies of scale. Robertson is determined to develop export sales, with North America being a prime target, noting its strong national ties and common language as tremendous benefits.

Doug Jack is with Transport Resources in the United Kingdom.

All megabus.com coaches carry prominent decals promoting the services.

By Doug Jack

In an exclusive interview with BUSRide, Brian Souter, chief executive officer of Stagecoach Group, Perth, UK, says he is more excited about the prospects for megabus.com in North America than at any time since he and his sister co-founded Stagecoach in Scotland 30 years ago. This is a profound statement from a man not given to exaggeration, but who retains his great enthusiasm for the public transport industry.
Originally established to run express coach services following deregulation in the United Kingdom at the end of 1980, Stagecoach expanded massively by acquiring bus companies throughout the country. In 2003, the company was the first in the United Kingdom to set up a low cost, Internet-based, intercity coach service, Megabus.com, based on the low cost airline model in which prices for seats increase closer to the date of travel.
“We decided to run between Dundee on the east coast of Scotland and Glasgow (a distance of about 80 miles,” says Souter. “We bought two 40-foot mid-life double deck buses from Hong Kong, fitted them out with coach seats, and proofed the concept. The drivers nicknamed them the “slug” and the “snail”, because one could do 53 miles per hour and the other 55 miles per hour.”
Megabus.com quickly caught the imagination of customers in the United Kingdom, leading to investment in new coaches. Nowadays, 73 vehicles, nearly all 49-foot Volvo Plaxton single deck vehicles serve 60 towns and cities throughout the country. They are fitted with 64 reclining seats and have a washroom at floor level at the rear.
“We then decided to take Megabus.com to the United States, starting in Chicago in 2006,” says Souter. “We used the existing facilities of Coach USA and branded some of their vehicles in megabus.com colours. We took a loss in the first year, broke even in the second year and were making money by the third year.”
Souter believes that this was the first coach company in North America to establish an operation based on the low cost airline model, with fares starting from as little as $1 plus a booking fee.

North America
Megabus.com started in North America with 45-foot single deck coaches, of which 43 are still in use. However, the project really took off with the introduction of the luxurious TD925 Van Hool double deck coaches built in Belgium. Megabus currently has just over 100 double deck coaches in service and another 60 on order with Van Hool for 2011.

Brian Souter in front of one of the first 49-foot megabus.com coaches in the UK.

“They transformed the business,” says Souter. “They have proved to be very reliable and fuel efficient. They use about half a mile per gallon more fuel than a single deck coach, but compared seat for seat, the TD925s are 30 percent more fuel-efficient. The carbon footprint per passenger per mile is far lower than any other form of transport, and that is important to many of our consumers.”
Souter says the market for budget travel has bucked the trend of the wider economy and the company has created more than 250 jobs over the past two years. More than 7.7 million passengers have now travelled with the service in the United States and Canada since 2006, and it is now carrying more than 250,000 passengers a month.
Brian is full of enthusiasm when talking about the business in North America.
“Fundamentally, we cracked something that has never been done before,” he says. “We got people out of their cars and de-stigmatised the coach. Customers are happy to take Megabus from point to point with all the benefits such as WiFi. This is a great achievement considering the very high levels of car ownership. We encourage the use of park and ride sites so customers can use Megabus services.”
Megabus.com now covers nearly 50 cities from hubs in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Toronto. Souter noted that with passenger demand so strong in North America last year, Megabus will continue to expand its range of destinations. With sales last year of more than $100 million, Megabus is expressing ambitious plans for expansion.
Asked what he sees as the future for Megabus in North America, Souter believes the company has not saturated its footprint, saying he has identified a number of further services Megabus will rollout later this year.
“I believe there is an opportunity to take megabus.com into other areas where we are not currently active,” says Souter. “My inclination is to do that by entering into exclusive operating agreements rather than by acquiring fleets. I am still thinking about how best to proceed, but we seem to have two options.”
He says the first is to find contractors who are prepared to provide vehicles that meet the Megabus specification and to run them on Megabus routes and schedules at an agreed fixed rate per mile, with Megabus taking the risk on revenue.
The other option is for Megabus.com to charge an access fee to their website, booking systems and all the support that goes behind it, with the contractor taking the profits or risks from the revenue from passengers.
Souter is open for serious discussions on these ideas.

“We know our territory pretty well, but there is nothing like local knowledge for potential partners who are interested in taking Megabus to other parts of the continent,” he says. “Look how far we have come in just five years. We have found a winning formula and there are great opportunities for growth.”

Stagecoach

Stagecoach developed Megabus around a series of hubs, looking very carefully at departure times. Consumer driven schedules with good timings are very important. A high percentage of departures are off-street, but Megabus does use some coach stations.
“We have also analyzed how our customers previously made their journeys,” says Souter. “Sixty percent previously used cars. Another 19 percent come from airlines and 11 percent from rail. The United States has just gone through its biggest recession in 80 years. At times like that, people like value for money. We are skilled at yield management. Our average journey is 350 miles and our average fare is $18.”
According to Southwest Airline’s website its average mileage is 650 with an average fare of $119.
“Southwest Airlines is one of our main competitors, but we are developing new hubs and offering direct services that have not previously been available,” says Souter. “For instance, a passenger can take Megabus direct from Philadelphia to Boston or Toronto. Coaches run direct from city center to city center with none of the hassles of airport security.

Doug Jack is with Transport Resources in the United Kingdom