Dublin-based commercial vehicle importer, distributor and assembler Harris Group has launched a concept for a fully kitted out mobile testing and vaccination vehicle based on an AOS Visigo rear-engined midicoach.
It has been designed to showcase how a coach can be repurposed as “an adaptable resource to fit current needs,” says the Group’s bus and coach arm. The vehicle could carry a trained response crew and the necessary and associated laboratory equipment. That would enable testing and vaccination services to be taken to rural communities, schools and existing healthcare facilities.
The conversion would take an existing Visigo and equip it with extras such as side awnings, removable seats for the crew, a toilet, a wet area, a boiler, a kitchen, four pop-up tents stored in the luggage bay, external lights and a portable generator. Laboratory equipment and other items could be customised depending on the customer’s requirements, says the company.
Bus and Coach Division General Manager Chris Haughton adds that the customised vaccination and testing variant of the Visigo would be adapted from “a tried and tested model” that is already on the road in Ireland. “It will offer the necessary technology, flexibility, efficiency and mobility needed to adapt to anyone’s use case.”
Harris Group previously created a stir at Coach & Bus UK in 2019 when it unveiled its Exodus model, which had also been customised from an AOS Visigo. That coach is adapted to suit a funeral application and it can carry a coffin in the underfloor luggage area. It is equipped with a ‘rover’ unit upon which the coffin can be carried, but is also suitable for use as a conventional coach at other times.
