The feature on Alstom's Aptis [routeone/12th April] certainly illustrated how fresh minds can possibly make a real difference to the shape of future buses. However, any analogy to the modern tram or light rail vehicle is very wide of the mark.
Big windows do not make a tramm and horrible memories of First's similar attempts 10 years ago come flooding back.
A modern tram, with some exceptions in eastern Europe, will be 30m long and articulated into several parts and designed to carry huge numbers of passengers, usually on segregated track. It is likely to last the 30+ years as suggested, but any bus that is subjected to vibrations caused by the internal combustion engine, and the continual thumping caused by the ever-increasing potholes and dropped grids, is most unlikely to last more than half that.
Fair enough, the Apris will benefit from electric drive but while I welcome the growing value of battery power, I do wonder what will happen when a bus arrives at its destination or charging point too late to receive its life-giving boost and still maintain the schedule.
I have no doubt no operators will discount these ideas so Alstom might benefit by redirecting their abilities towards emphasising the Aptis's undoubted new ideas.
Howard Piltz
Wilmslow
Cheshire
