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70-699: The Scania OmniCity is an integrally constructed transverse-engined low floor city bus that was available from Scania on the European market between 1997 and 2012. The OmniCity was introduced in September 1996 as the first product based on the 4-series bus range . The first prototypes were built in the former DAB plant in Silkeborg , Denmark, and serial production continued there in 1997, joined by Scania's plant in Katrineholm , Sweden. From 1999 it

140-409: A hydraulic or pneumatic 'kneeling device', which can be used when the bus is not in motion, tilting it or lowering it at the front axle even further, often down to normal curb height. Depending on how close to the curb the bus is parked and wheelchair design, this can allow wheelchair users to board unaided. Though such technology has been available and in use on high-floor buses since the 1970s, it

210-785: A batch of OmniCities running on ethanol fuel were delivered in 2007. In France, Parisian municipal operator RATP ordered over 300 OmniCities from 2006 to 2010 in both rigid 12m and articulated 18m lengths, the latter of which were operated on 'Orlybus' express services to Orly Airport . 50 Omnicities were also ordered in 2003 for service in Amiens , while fleets of OmniCities were sold to operators in Angers and Calais . OmniCities were sold to Italian operators in Milan , Genoa , Bergamo and Venice , while in Spain, Valencian operator EMT purchased

280-702: A batch of eleven articulated OmniCities, while First Greater Manchester placed eighteen in service, predominantly on services between Manchester and Bury . A batch of nineteen of high-specification artics also entered service with Cardiff Bus in 2006 on the high-profile ' Baycar ' network. The Euro IV/V/EEV articulated version of the OmniCity was known as the CN280UA . In the United Kingdom, eleven were purchased by Menzies Aviation for use on shuttle services around Heathrow Airport , after purchasing ten on

350-785: A high floor bus where the floor is flat in order to align with the high platforms in certain Bus Rapid Transit systems. Thereby, referring to it as a non-step high floor bus. The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) mandates the use of low-floor or low-entry buses on city bus routes in the Philippines since 2016. Low-floor buses are used on city bus networks in Metro Manila , Metro Cebu and Davao City , and on some provincial routes, and most Point-to-Point Bus services, although older coaches are still largely used for such services. Buses used on

420-539: A low floor throughout the length of the bus (more popular in Europe ), and low-entry buses with step-free access to only a part of the bus, most commonly between the front door and the middle door (more popular in North America). In North America, both types are commonly called low-floor, as the majority of the vehicle has a low floor, without steps at the doors. The main reason for choosing a low-entry configuration

490-464: A low-floor bus "no-step bus (ノーステップバス)". At Enshu Railway Company in Hamamatsu Area, a low-floor bus is called "omnibus (オムニバス)", " cho-teisho bus (超低床バス; very low-floor bus)" and " cho-teisho omnibus (超低床オムニバス; very low-floor omnibus)". Japanese government calls a low-floor bus " cho-teisho non-step bus (超低床ノンステップバス; very low-floor non-step bus)". The term non-step bus may also refer to

560-492: A low-floor bus therefore requires careful design. Low floor configuration is also known to have poor side to side dead load distribution within the chassis due to the asymmetrical off-centre placement of driveline components - mainly engine and transmission. As a result, many of such buses require electronically controlled air suspension to compensate the lopsided configuration. Low-floor buses usually include an area without seating (or seating that folds up) next to at least one of

630-715: A rounded roof dome with a single-curvature windscreen and a separate destination display . Unlike the Scania L94UB and OmniLink , the OmniCity features a full low floor without the need for steps or ramps to reach the rear seats, similar to the Volvo B7L . The Go-Ahead Group were the most popular customer of the rigid single-decker OmniCity, purchasing a total of 132 of the type, seventy of these going to Metrobus of Crawley for both its London and south-east England operations. Additional operators of rigid single-decker OmniCities included 78 with Menzies Aviation , 42 with

700-413: A smaller low floor area with a small underfloor bin for some luggage. Whilst these buses do not provide a full amount of luggage space, they can be used to house more luggage than what can be held inside the bus itself. Another drawback is the arrangement means the section of the bus that is at curb height is very short—consisting of enough space to house the wheelchair area and then rising up, to accommodate

770-514: A total of 81 rigid Omnicities from 2000 to 2004. The single-decker OmniCity was first introduced in 2002 in right-hand drive for the United Kingdom market. The earlier version of the single-decker OmniCity was known as the CN94UB . The Euro IV version was known as the CN230UB or CN270UB , the 230 and 270 indicate the maximum power (in hp) of the engine. The Scania OmniCity single-decker has

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840-439: Is a bus or trolleybus that has no steps between the ground and the floor of the bus at one or more entrances, and low floor for part or all of the passenger cabin. A bus with a partial low floor may also be referred to as a low-entry bus or seldom a flat-floor bus in some locations. Low floor refers to a bus deck that is accessible from the sidewalk with only a single step with a small height difference, caused solely by

910-669: Is a very low or non-existent availability of high-floor electric buses. The majority of standard and truncated vehicles were and are the Caio Millennium and Millennium BRT "toco" models, on Mercedes-Benz O500U, Scania K270 and K310, Volvo B7RLE and B290RLE and Volkswagen 17.240 and 17.260 chassis. For articulated vehicles, Caio Mondego HA and Millennium BRT vehicles with Mercedes-Benz O500UA and O500UDA chassis were and are used. The Biarticulates were made with Caio TopBus PB and Millennium BRT TopBus bodies on Volvo B360S and B9Salf chassis. In Brisbane , all Translink buses are of

980-495: Is of significant utility on low-floor vehicles only where it enables less-mobile passengers to board and leave the vehicle without help from others. Many vehicles are also equipped with wheel-chair lifts, or ramps which, when combined with a low floor, can provide a nearly level entry. An implementation of the low floor design exists in Australia where custom coaches make a "hybrid" variant of its CB60 bodywork. These buses combine

1050-466: Is one of the first cities in India that introduced Low Floor buses. The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation, BMTC operates many services using the premium Volvo 8400LE Low-floor buses. These buses are air-conditioned, and offer features such as automatic transmission, kneeling and wheel-chair ramp, typical of modern city buses. They are also fitted with LED display boards as well as ITS to announce

1120-643: Is to allow better placement for the powertrain and other technical equipment in the raised floor section, in addition to allowing a more comfortable ride on rough roads. Some manufacturers use the initials LF or L in their model designations for fully low-floor models (or in the case of German manufacturers, NF or N , based on the German word Niederflur , which means low floor), and in North America buses that are partially low-floor are often also designated LF. In some countries, LE , short for Low Entry ,

1190-403: Is used by some manufacturers in their model designations for low-entry buses. Most bus manufacturers achieve a low floor height by making rear-engined rear-wheel drive buses with independent front suspension , so that no axle is needed to pass under the floor of the front part of passenger compartment, or a lowered front axle. Some full low-floor buses also have a lowered rear axle, while

1260-725: The Den Oudsten B85/B86  [ nl ] . Other competitors followed suit, with the Orion VI (1995), Nova Bus LF Series (1996, also derived from the Den Oudsten B85), Gillig Low Floor (1997, derived from a shuttle bus design for the Hertz rental car agency), and Neoplan AN440L (1990/94/99). By 2008, most new bus orders in the United States were for low-floor buses. In the capital of this country,

1330-871: The EDSA Busway are usually equipped with 1-2 doors on the left side for boarding at the median stations, although not all units currently have them installed. Low-floor buses often use upholstered coach-style seating in a 2-3, or 2-2 configuration, although plastic seats may be found in some buses. Low-floor wheelchair-accessible buses were first introduced in Singapore in 2006 with 150 Volvo B9TL CDGE buses procured by SBS Transit . These buses were registered SBS7300P - SBS7499A. Volvo B9TL CDGE buses were fully retired in 2023. In 2007, SBS Transit procured 1101 units of low-entry Scania K230UB buses bodied by Gemilang Coachworks of Senai , Malaysia . Afterwards, all new city buses procured by SBS Transit, SMRT Buses and

1400-734: The East London Bus Group , the former operations of Stagecoach London owned by Macquarie Bank , purchased 174 OmniCities. London United donated their first double-decker OmniCity to the London Bus Museum in February 2022. Outside of London, many Go-Ahead companies purchased OmniCities, with Bluestar , Southern Vectis and Wilts & Dorset purchasing 61 as part of Go South Coast . 33 OmniCities were also purchased by Metrobus and Brighton & Hove . The single-decker articulated (or " bendy bus ") version of

1470-495: The FirstGroup , 48 with both Arriva UK Bus and Nottingham City Transport , and 24 with Cardiff Bus . Newport Bus , a popular operator of Scania buses, purchased 38 single-deckers throughout the OmniCity's UK production run, buying no more Scania products after production ended in 2011. In 2005, Scania announced the introduction of the OmniCity 2-axle double-decker bus to complement its OmniDekka double-decker bus sold in

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1540-564: The Land Transport Authority are low-floor. Low-floor buses are first adopted in Germany in 1989, and to make them easier to use for wheelchairs and strollers, the minimum ground clearance of the entire vehicle is lowered and the floor is proportionately raised by 30 centimetres (12 in) above the road surface. The Dennis Dart SLF (Super Low Floor) marked the wholesale introduction of single-deck low floor buses in

1610-767: The Nordic countries . In Norway, Omnicities were delivered to operator Norgesbuss AS in 2006 for service in the capital Oslo . Some of these would later be sold on for further use in the Polish city of Koszalin in 2015. Omnicities were also sold to Concordia Bus in Norway, Linjebuss in Sweden, the Helsinki Public Transport Authority and to Strætó bs in Reykjavík . OmniCities were also sold to

1680-474: The Optare Alero and Hino Poncho . Accessibility was previously achieved in paratransit type applications, which use small vehicles with the fitment of special lifts. The inception of small low-floor buses has allowed the development of several accessible demand-responsive transport schemes using standard 'off-the-shelf' buses. A disadvantage of the low floor is accommodating the bus's own wheels. With

1750-635: The Yellow Coach 719, using Dwight Austin's V-drive; they continued in common use until the 1990s, though shorter V-configuration engines in a longitudinal "T-drive" configuration became common in the 1960s. Transverse engines were also used in the British Leyland Atlantean , in many transit buses, and in nearly all modern double decker buses . They have also been widely used by Scania , MAN , Volvo and Renault 's bus divisions. Engines may be placed in two main positions within

1820-441: The 1960s, are said to have "transverse" engines, while motorcycles with a V-twin mounted with its crankshaft perpendicular to the direction of travel, e.g. most Ducatis since the 1970s and most Harley-Davidsons , are said to have "longitudinal" engines. This convention uses the longest horizontal dimension (length or width) of the engine as its reference axis instead of the crankshaft. Low-floor bus A low-floor bus

1890-623: The AC volvo bus and MW series are served by the Tata Marcopolo buses operated by WBSTC. AC Marcopolo buses serve the MH series route operated by WBHIDCO and the MB series route operated by BHBL. Calcutta State Transport Corporation (CSTC) also run AC Volvo Bus & Ashok Leylan JanBus. In Japan , a low-floor bus is called "non-step bus (ノンステップバス)". Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation used to calling

1960-809: The Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, since 1997 the legislation governs that all buses of lines of "national" jurisdiction (bus lines that circulate within the capital district and/or cross from here to the suburbs). The first low-floor bus produced in Argentina and marketed in this country was the El Detalle OA105, and the first low-floor bus imported by Argentina was the Marcopolo Torino GV Low-Entry brought from Brazil in 1998. Within Paraguay's public transit system, it

2030-502: The Estonian cities of Tallinn and Tartu . OmniCities were also popular in many regions of Poland. 108 rigid OmniCities were delivered to Warsaw operator PKS between 2007 and 2008. Two buses replacing accident-damaged models were also delivered to PKS in 2011. In Kraków , 15 articulated OmniCities were delivered from 2001 to 2003, while OmniCities also entered service in the cities of Koszalin, Konin , Grudziądz and Słupsk , where

2100-660: The OmniCity was first introduced in 1996. The articulated OmniCity built by 2006 was known as the CN94UA . In the United Kingdom, a demonstrator toured London between 2004 and 2005, but failed to win any orders in place of the Mercedes-Benz Citaro . After other trials around the country, this bus was bought by Lothian Buses in April 2008, and then acquired by Nottingham City Transport after it left Lothian Buses in late August 2009. In 2005, Travel West Midlands ordered

2170-656: The UK. It has a full low floor and is a complete Scania product, unlike the OmniDekka which features a body by East Lancashire Coachbuilders . The early 2-axle double-decker OmniCity uses the N94UD chassis, the same as the OmniDekka. A demonstrator was delivered to Travel West Midlands (now National Express West Midlands) and entered service in November 2005; orders for five more OmniCities subsequently followed. The first order

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2240-495: The United Kingdom in 1995, after many small-scale demonstrator usages. Low floor buses were rapidly introduced on high-profile routes, notably becoming a requirement for London Buses contracts. The Optare Solo introduced in 1997 marked another step change with inroads into smaller usages traditionally served by minibuses . The final phase came with low floor double-deckers the Dennis Trident 2 and Volvo B7TL entering

2310-898: The WBSTC. These buses connects places like the Kolkata Airport , Barasat (Capital Town of North Suburb), New Town , Salt Lake , Howrah , Santragachi (a station on the Howrah-Kharagpur railway line), Kudghat and Tollygunge . The road network in Kolkata is vast. Under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, air conditioned buses have been included as a part of travel comfort to commuters. Air-conditioned buses are operated by West Bengal Surface Transport Corporation (WBSTC) directly & through outsourcing. These buses are served by Tata Marcopolo Buses and Volvo Low Floor Buses. The V Series and VS series bus routes are served by

2380-542: The city center. Low-floor buses have become popular on the Structural and Regional Articulation lines, and have been a mandatory model to be purchased for these since 2015. Until then, exceptions for local lines with low-floor buses were rare, but this has been changing since 2019 and especially since 2023. In 2023, the city banned the purchase of new diesel buses. With the mandatory use of electric buses, new buses on local lines are also being made with low floors, as there

2450-502: The conventional buses. A revamp plan is underway to improve bus-shelters in the city and to integrate GPS systems in DTC buses and bus stops so as to provide reliable information about bus arrivals. The Delhi Government decided to expedite this process and procured 6,600 low floor buses for the DTC before commonwealth games in 2010. Kolkata has an extensive network of government run buses. Recently air-conditioned buses have been introduced by

2520-562: The difference between the bus deck and sidewalk. This is distinct from high-floor , a bus deck design that requires climbing one or more steps (now known as step entrance) to access the interior floor that is placed at a higher height. Being low-floor improves the accessibility of the bus for the public, particularly the elderly and people with disabilities , including those using wheelchairs and walkers . Almost all are rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout . Low-floor buses are generally divided into two major types: fully low-floor buses with

2590-445: The doors, where wheelchairs , walkers , strollers/prams, and where allowed even bicycles, can be parked. This is sometimes not the only purpose of this area, though, as many operators employ larger standee areas for high occupancy at peak times. Despite the space existing, operators may also insist that only one or two wheelchairs or pushchairs can be accommodated unfolded, due to space/safety concerns. Low floors can be complemented by

2660-411: The end of 2005, 10 years ahead of the national requirement. London was one of the first major cities in the world to have a fully accessible bus fleet. Due to the deregulated nature of the public transport system in the UK, adoption of the higher cost low floor buses was usually in conjunction with some sort of grant or quality partnership with a local authority , as the profitability of many routes

2730-537: The end of production, in 1991. However, it was with Alec Issigonis 's Mini , introduced by the British Motor Corporation in 1959, that the design gained acclaim. Issigonis incorporated the car's transmission into the engine's sump , producing a drivetrain unit narrow enough to install transversely in a car only 4 feet (1.2 m) wide. While previous DKW and Saab cars used small, unrefined air-cooled two-stroke engines with poor performance,

2800-446: The enforced sale of non-compliant existing vehicles, allowing operators to retain a high floor vehicle until "the end of their economic life". In reality, as the prevalence of low floor buses spreads, combined with grants/incentives, it is likely that the prevalence of high floor vehicles in the national fleet will markedly reduce before all buses were de-registered by 27 October 2014. In the past, in times of reduced economic investment, it

2870-485: The engine to its gearbox by a shaft and set the differential off-center so that it could be connected to the gearbox more easily. The half shafts from the differential to the wheels therefore differed in length, which would have made the car's steering asymmetrical were it not for their torsional stiffness being made the same. Giacosa's layout was first used in the Autobianchi Primula in 1964 and later in

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2940-541: The gearbox-in-sump arrangement meant that an 848 cc four-cylinder water-cooled engine could be fitted to the Mini, providing strong performance for a car of its size. Coupled to the much greater amount of interior space afforded by the layout (the entire drivetrain only took up 20% of the car's length), this made the Mini a genuine alternative to the conventional small family car. This design reached its peak starting with Dante Giacosa 's elaboration of it for Fiat . He connected

3010-747: The halts. The corporation also had tried Mercedes-Benz Low-Floor buses as well as Ashok Leyland ULE coaches, but chose to stick to the Volvo offering. In order to keep the bus ticket prices low, the BMTC operates the majority of their services using Non-Airconditioned Semi-Low Floor (SLF) buses that have a floor height of 650mm as against the 400mm floor height of the true Low-Floor buses. These buses are from Ashok Leyland and Tata Motors, with future procurements planned to be from Eicher (VECV). These cheaper alternative to low-floor buses do not have kneeling or wheel-chair accessible ramps, but they have air suspension and use

3080-520: The hull. The T-54/55 eventually became the most produced tank in history. After the Second World War , Saab used the configuration in their first model, the Saab 92 , in 1947. The arrangement was also used for Borgward 's Goliath and Hansa brand cars. The East German -built Trabant , which appeared in 1957, also had a transverse mounted two stroke engine, and this design was kept until

3150-402: The lack of steps, studies have found the opposite effect in the UK. This is apparently due to the prevailing system of operation where passengers enter and exit through one single front door. It has been suggested that the previous 1980s/90s high floor step entrance buses which featured a centre rail, encouraged a bi-directional flow of entering and exiting passengers simultaneously. The removal of

3220-423: The low floor, the wheels protrude into the passenger cabin, and need to be contained in wheel pockets of waist height, and this occupies space which would otherwise be used for seating. To allow space for technical equipment, many low-floor buses have the seats mounted on podiums, making a small step up from the floor, while others are able to mount the seats directly to the floor, avoiding the step. Seating layout for

3290-698: The luggage bin. These buses also lack the ability to have a center door. Many bus rapid transit systems employ a level boarding by using high-floor buses stopping at "station" style bus stops. Specially raised sections of curb may also be used to achieve accessibility with lesser low floor models, although this is more expensive for the operator, and only attractive for regular busy scheduled routes. For infrequent routes or routes with hail and ride sections, or demand responsive transport , raised curbs would only be feasible in terminuses . Some transit agencies refused to order low-floor buses altogether, such as New Jersey Transit and MUNI owing to terrain conditions in

3360-547: The mass market, even though they were introduced after the Optare Spectra . London Buses was one of the earliest major users of low-floor buses, with the first low-floor single decker vehicles entering service in 1993 and the first low-floor double decker vehicles entering service in 1998. Following withdrawal of older, high-floor vehicles such as the AEC Routemaster , the bus fleet became fully accessible at

3430-520: The motor car: Space allowed for engines within the front wheel wells is commonly limited to the following: The description of the orientation of V-twin and flat-twin motorcycle engines sometimes differs from the convention as stated above. Motorcycles with a V-twin engine mounted with its crankshaft parallel to the direction of travel, e.g. the AJS S3 V-twin , Indian 841 , Victoria Bergmeister , Honda CX series and several Moto Guzzis since

3500-436: The pole to allow wheelchair/buggy access created the situation where the quintessentially polite British bus passenger would wait for all passengers to alight before boarding, leading to an increase in dwell times . Moscow was the first city to introduce low floor as the compulsory requirement for the suppliers of the city buses. By 2005 a few hundreds of low-floor buses started intra-metropolitan service. At first, PAZ-3237

3570-441: The popular Fiat 128 . With the gearbox mounted separately to the engine, these cars were by necessity larger than the Mini, but this proved to be no disadvantage. This layout, still in use today, also provided superior refinement, easier repair and was better-suited to adopting five-speed transmissions than the original Issigonis in-sump design. The Lamborghini Miura used a transverse mid-mounted 4.0-litre V12 . This configuration

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3640-632: The previous chassis. Competitors Transverse engine The Critchley light car , made by the Daimler Motor Company in 1899, had a transverse engine with belt drive to the rear axle. The first successful transverse-engine cars were the two-cylinder DKW F1 series of cars, which first appeared in 1931. During WWII, transverse engines were developed for armored vehicles, with the Soviet T-44 and T-54/T-55 tanks being equipped with transverse engines to save space within

3710-535: The rear axle is not an issue on a low-entry bus. Many low-floor buses, including the Irisbus Citelis (also in Skoda 24Tr trolleybus version), have the engine in a vertical cabinet at the rear of the bus. Van Hool have a series of "side-engine mid-drive" buses that puts the engine off to one side of the cabin longitudinally between the first and the second axle, to maximize usable cabin space. The same concept

3780-506: The rear end of the bus. The same applies to trolley buses that are mostly of low-floor design. Other cities that use low-floor buses on the regular routes are Kazan , Sochi , Tyumen , Pskov and more. Most of these vehicles are domestically manufactured by LiAZ , GAZ , KAMAZ and Volgabus . In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act is credited with motivating the development of low-floor buses, directly affecting

3850-469: The rear styling. The Scania Citywide was launched in 2011 as a replacement for the OmniCity, except for the right-hand drive markets, where Scania have chosen to rely on external bodywork manufacturers, including Alexander Dennis . With a total of more than 2200 units for the United Kingdom, the last few OmniCities were built in 2012. The single-decker and articulated Scania OmniCity were popular in continental Europe. Omnicities were popular in most of

3920-408: The regions to the center, or connect two large terminals of two regions passing through the center Regional Articulation, which connect distant neighborhoods to the center without passing through large terminals, or connect two distant neighborhoods passing through important regions. Locations/distributors, which connect neighborhoods to large terminals or stations. None of these lines pass through

3990-566: The same or better seats as those found in the Volvo buses. They also feature manual transmission as against automatic transmission With the introduction of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and the development of dedicated corridors for the service, bus service is set to improve. The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) has started introducing air-conditioned buses and brand new low-floor buses (with floor height of 400 mm (15.75 in) and even higher on one third area as against 230 mm (9.06 in) available internationally) on city streets to replace

4060-558: The same year, the first low floor bus specification was drafted by DPTAC. The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 provided for the completion of the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000, which specified that all new public service vehicles over 22 seats should be low floor from 31 December 2000, with smaller vehicles mandated from 1 January 2005. The 2000 regulations do not require retro-fitting of pre-existing vehicles or

4130-558: The service area. DART still has a preference for high floor buses. Although New York City Transit runs some 40-foot low-floors, it originally refused to order low-floor buses, namely D60LFs from New Flyer , after the D60HF, a high floor model, was discontinued mid-delivery. However, they have demonstrated both the D60LF and NovaBus LFSA, the latter of which they have decided to order. Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation Bangalore

4200-613: The standardized design of the Transbus Program , which concluded with the introduction of so-called 'interim' Advanced Design Buses with a lower floor height but which required lifts to board passengers in wheelchairs. The first low-floor (low-entry) buses to be delivered were the New Flyer Low Floor D40LF, to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 1991. The New Flyer LF was derived from

4270-553: The vehicle. This has also allowed for improved safety in a frontal impact, due to more longitudinal engine compartment space being created. The result is a larger front crumple zone . Transverse engines have also been widely used in buses. In the United States, they were offered in the early 1930s by Twin Coach and used with limited success in Dwight Austin's Pickwick Nite-Coach. Transverse bus engines first appeared widely in

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4340-600: Was also built at the plant in Słupsk , Poland. Production in Silkeborg ended in early 2000, and Katrineholm in 2004, with only a few test buses in 2005 to 2006. Since then all have been built in Poland. In 2006, the OmniCity was upgraded from the 4-series to the new N-series , which also included a thorough facelift, with the large rectangular front headlamps being replaced by smaller, round items, and further tweaks carried out to

4410-436: Was also utilized by Volvo on their B9S articulated chassis. For smaller buses, such as midibuses , the low-floor capability is achieved by placing the front wheels ahead of the entrance. One of the last types of buses to gain low-floor accessibility as standard was the minibus , where a similar front-wheel arrangement allows around 12 seats and a wheelchair space to be accommodated in very small low-floor minibuses , such as

4480-524: Was for five buses by Lothian Buses of Edinburgh which entered service during the summer of 2006 on the 'Airlink' express network. Lothian Buses subsequently ordered a further 10 buses to replace the Dennis Tridents on the network; these buses entered service in late 2007. Initially, the OmniCity double-decker was in limited production until the Euro IV version was launched. The reason for this

4550-408: Was not high enough to justify conversion based purely on increased revenue. It has been reported however that adoption of so-called Easy Access buses does have a positive effect of ridership and revenue levels. Under the Transport Act 1985 the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) (or commonly DiPTAC) was established to provide independent consultation on accessibility issues. In

4620-439: Was not uncommon for service buses to be used for 15 to 20 years. While some coaches have been produced with a small front low floor section at the driver's level, most coaches in the UK are being made accessible through the use of wheelchair lifts , with the 2005 Caetano Levante being one of the largest introductions. While another widely stated benefit of low floor buses is quicker boarding for able-bodied passengers due to

4690-404: Was not until 2012 that the first low-floor bus in the country were added to its fleet, being a 1999 Marcopolo Viale imported used from Argentina. In São Paulo, low-floor buses began to become popular in the 2000s with the creation of the so-called Sistema Interligado (Interconnected System, in English) which divided bus routes into so-called lines: Structural, which connect the large terminals of

4760-476: Was selected for the city centre, while LiAZ-5292 were chosen to serve city outskirts. Later the articulated version of the latter, specifically designed for Moscow, the LiAZ-6213 was introduced. In St.Petersburg the transition to low-floor-only city bus services was completed only by 2021. Besides LiAZ-5292 and LiAZ-6213 and other full low-floor models that account for 85% of the city buses, there are also semi low-floor buses in service, with elevated floor in

4830-405: Was that the new Euro IV Scania engine was a five-cylinder 9-litre EGR engine as opposed to its Euro III predecessor, which was a six-cylinder 9-litre engine. The chassis designation had also changed to N230UD or N270UD . 462 double-decker OmniCities were produced for London's bus operators , with London United and London Sovereign , then owned by Transdev , purchasing 206 OmniCities, while

4900-404: Was unheard of in 1965, but became more common in the following decades, with cars such as the Lancia Montecarlo , Noble M12 , Toyota MR2 , Pontiac Fiero , and first-generation Honda NSX using such a powertrain design. The Land Rover LR2 Freelander , along with all Volvo models from 1998 on (including V8 models), employ a transversely-mounted engine in order to increase passenger space inside

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