RAMPS FOR ONE-MAN BUSES?
Page 36
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
By Derek Moses
CHOULD one-man operated buses be fitted %-..) with automatic ramps leading from the pavement into the bus so that women with babies in pushchairs can wheel their offspring into the vehicle, leaving the pushchair in a "pram park" inside the bus, and removing the aforementioned offspring in comparative comfort?
No, I am not being frivolous; furthermore, the suggestion is not my own. It was, in fact, made by a correspondent to the "Sunderland Echo ", who was complaining about the difficulties of boarding one-man buses with her little boy, two full shopping bags, and a pushchair.
In the days of the old-fashioned bus with a conductor, there was always someone to lend a hand and help housewives aboard. But as the population of one-man buses grows, so does the problem of boarding and alighting unaided.
Bus operators just cannot afford to ignore this problem, or to take my remarks with a pinch of salt. Housewives travelling to and from the shops are the bread and butter customers between the morning and evening peak periods. They have got to be given a helping hand.
Leyland, AEC and Daimler have all produced rear-engined single-deck chassis, allowing the bodybuilder to provide singlestep entrances and a ramped floor. But what do the operators do? Specify iwostep entrance—and that after having made a song and dance about the advantages of single-step entrances on rear-engined buses. Bristol/ECM have done the same with the RE bus.
The excuse made by the operators is that ramps are dangerous. Yet one of the findings of Edinburgh Corporation after testing a Leyland Atlantean PDR1/1 with ramped floor was that no incidents involving passengers slipping on that floor were reported (" The Commercial Motor ", May 21). And this despite the fact that the bus was operated in snowy weather when the floors would be permanently wet.
So we have steps at the entrance, instead of a ramp. I wonder which operators will be first to introduce a bus with a ramp in place of steps, together with a ramp which can be extended automatically on to the pavement when the doors are opened so that housewives can wheel pushchairs on and off.
After all, if we are to dispense with the services of a conductor in favour of automatic devices, let us use such devices to aid passengers. Point taken?
West Riding Changes Order: Following a reappraisal of traffic requirements the West Riding Automobile Co. Ltd., Wakefield, has changed its order for 20 Leyland Adantean double-deck bus chassis to one calling for 20 rear-engined Leyland Panther PSUR1.1R single-deckers.