The original Enviro 200 was conceived as a Dart replacement for London. It has a full low floor design (unlike the Dart/E200Dart) and the Cummin ISBe engine mounted on offside rear, allowing the exit door, as said, to be moved all the way to the back of the vehicle. All were built to a 10.8m length at a B27D layout, with most of the 27 seats at the low floor area (which is the greatest benefit of this vehicle). However, the rear mounted door caused concern by TfL for 1. fare-dodgers, 2. the opening door actually swings beyond the back of the vehicle, making it - theoretically - dangerous to vehicles at the back and 3. nobody know there was a door at the back in the first place and never use it. Because of these, and the fact that it was tailored too much on the London market only, at the end none was ordered by anyone.
The Enviro 200 Dart was developed as a replacement of Dart. It is not just a Dart with a new body, as the chassis was modified to reduce weight (and the new chassis, even when bodied by other coachbuilders, are still referred as E200Dart). Unlike the E200, the E200Dart is not a full low-floor bus. It is available in all lengths previously available in the classic Dart SLF.
The Enviro 300 was a supermidi bus, i.e. a large light-weight single decker. The chassis was, again, based on the Super Dart but, like the E200Dart, was tweaked to reduce weight. The idea is the lighter Enviro 300 will be more economically to run and lure operators away from the heavier full size buses like B7RLE, Citaros and Scania K/L-series. The only problem is, the light-weight has made E300 (and it's direct competing VDL SB200) a less tough vehicle in comparison, and as a result, it never challenged the market as ADL/Transbus had hope.
But the fact is, the design of rear door located at the end of the bus is not innovative. The German buses like NL, Citaro, or even the French buses, they have such design for long time. Just they are longer and have one more door in the middle. I wonder why this design cannot adapt to England...
原帖由 sunnykam 於 2008-8-26 22:34 發表
But the fact is, the design of rear door located at the end of the bus is not innovative. The German buses like NL, Citaro, or even the French buses, they have such design for long time. Just they are ...
They just want something similar to existing fleet and easy to manage and repair.
原帖由 sunnykam 於 2008-8-26 14:34 發表
But the fact is, the design of rear door located at the end of the bus is not innovative. The German buses like NL, Citaro, or even the French buses, they have such design for long time. Just they are ...
It is. The reason why that design did not prove poular in Britain is the extra doors take away the number of seats that can be fit in, and the passengers don't like it. That also explains why most of the buses in the country are now single door.
The door itself is not the innovative feature of the E200, but the way the engine was fitted was, adding the drop-centre axis at the rear, its available low floor area is second to none - think about the 10.4m version (not 10.8 as I previously said, although it was also offered), out of the 27 seats available, 17 of them are at the low floor area, that's 6 more that the similar size E200Dart (although it has 3 more seats overall, but its total capacity is still 22 lower than the E200). For a dual door midibus, this is quite an achievement.
They just want something similar to existing fleet and easy to manage and repair.
Please correct me if I get wrong.
No, it's just the operational culture in Britain is a bit different. The buses in continental Europe are many built for citybus operation, but in Britain, the buses are used in a much wider operations.
