American Bus Driver Reacts To European City Buses! 

Yes I wonder about the destruction as well! 😂

@@BusDriverLife Hello there! I would like to recommend you to check out the link above (my channel), as I review public transit buses (Sonoma County Transit) in Northern California. Thank you!

You can never predict traffic, so do not blame the drivers only.

@@BusDriverLife So You are driving vandals (no hope in humanity)?

It's all about getting in and out fast. I guess it has something to do with the fact that Europian cities are pretty densely populated and the suburbs are not as far away from schools, work places and grocery stores. The travel time might be shorter on average than in the US, which lessens the need for seats. People also often jump in for a couple of stops to shorten the walk in eg. city centers. So there's more need for standing places in that kind of areas.

Thank you!!

Well said brother. Respect to all public transit workers out there 🫡

@@BusDriverLifeMaybe check out some double articulated buses from Europe and you could also take a look, how buses used to look like 20-30-40 years ago here.

I couldn't agree more. And it shocks me to see how few people actually greet the driver when entering through the front door. I do, but at least in the part of Germany where I live it doesn't seem to be common. I wonder what's so hard about giving them some appreciation for the important work they do by smiling at them and saying hi. It's not gonna hurt, I promise!

Well said !

Nope, it’s because of procurement rules. Look up the RMtransit video “why American buses are just worse”

I think the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality that so many Americans seem to almost religiously adhere to plays a large part in buses, trucks and cars not really being updated. Many Americans seem to prefer large buttons, levers, analog dials etc over more modern buttons and displays just for that reason.

@@tjroelsma That's just interface you're describing. The physical buttons are way safer than having everything including climate control in a screen.

Public transport in the USA is for poor people only... in Europe its for all people!

@@richman2601 I'm mentioning both BUTTONS and screens, so it looks like you're missing my point. As a former European trucker who drove for some years in the US in US trucks put it: - switches in US trucks need to be almost an inch long and a quarter inch wide or the trucker can't find them. - everything needs its own dedicated chrome lined dial mounted in a wooden dashboard because that looks cool. -switches are mostly lined up in rows without seemingly making much sense. European and Asian trucks are built with an ergonomically efficient environment in mind. Switches are grouped in dedicated blocks, with the most used ones close to the driver, because that makes more sense than just a couple of rows of switches in random sequences. Mercedes is even going as far as having related buttons grouped in blocks of 4 that can be popped out and changed in positioning on the dash, depending on what the driver finds more practical for his specific use. Dials have been mostly done away with because the screens will show the driver all the important and/or relevant information and the ECU will pop up an alert and display the less important information if something goes wrong. The whole philosophy of modern European and Asian trucks is to de-clutter the dashboard and let the driver focus on his/her main task more: driving a large commercial vehicle safely through dense traffic. Just the occasional glance at the dashboard screen will show the driver that the vehicle is still okay, has enough fuel and air pressure etc. The screen will show an alert, mostly by a flashing yellow/orange line around the edge when something starts misfunctioning and that alert will flash red when the misfunctioning becomes dangerous.

and their planes don't lose stuff mid-flight

Surprisingly, I had no problem with orienting at big English speaking airports (Heathrow and O'Hare) which I visited for first time in my life, but I got lost at main airport of my country (Vaclav Havel Airport) where everything is in my language. People say it's well marked but somehow it didn't worked for me. O'Hare was way easier to walk through even after like 24 hours of being awake (with 5 hours of sleep before), compared to one in Prague after quite good sleep at first plane.

It seems to me that it is because we Europeans love to compete with each other. Or at least keep up 😅😅

​@@eljanrimsa5843tell a lie just a week ago an airline from my country lost a blind cat during an international flight it was travelling in the cargo compartment

If you like airports you'll love Singapore Changi Airport. Even Kuala Lumpur International Airport is good. Then we Australians come home and wake up from the dream.

True. This one is from Brno in Czechia (DPMB - Brno public transport company). These plastic seats are easier for cleaning, but when driver turns faster, you can slide off :) DPMB is specific with its big workshop, so they buy these buses without motors and assemble electrical motor and trolley sets in it. like this one ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qmIesWDP6Tc.htmlsi=O8UpNfJX8tu9bKJ_

Those strings were still on a few vuses in Sweden im the 90ties, not seen em in Europe since. Then I came to the US and it was like traveling back in time.

In poland you can take a bicycle wirh you, bit you have to pay a ticket for it since it takes a lot of space

I believe it's much better to be able to actually take your bicycle with you inside of a bus. Unfortunately most busses don't allow for this (but there are some city busses that do!). Bus evolution should head in this direction in my opinion, even for busses that serve rural regions.

@@dnocturn84 the spaces inside the busses are usually needed by wheelchair users and strollers.

Depending on the numbers of passengers commuter busses in Denmark allow you to take a bicycle with you. For free. Though space is limited and need to be shared with baby carriages and wheelchairs. There are a maximum of two in each bus. The express busses only allow for bicycles outside of peak hours. Bikes are also allowed on commuter trains (S-Trains) with few restrictions, in the Copenhagen area. It’s allowed in the metro in of peak hours. On regional trains, a reservation of close to $ 3 is required - 4 bicycles is allowed on each train.

I think in Germany the less doors versions are more common

In the town I where I work they changed the city bus operator and with that they replaced the the 3-Door busses with 2-Door ones and it makes a huge difference.

In Prague we have 4 door buses in regular length for city service and the 2 door buses are for longer lines beyond city limits where people should enter only through front door.

Some London double decker's have 4 doors

@@keahnig164 yes, but I noticed that many more cities are switching to 12 long m with 3 doors amd 18 long m with 4 doors even in germany :)

Us-nord 😊

I agree

I love them and I have a folder about them come take a ride! (at folder 4) :)) 🚅🚈🚞🚝🚂🚃🚄 trains, trams, aren't they all beautifull

Headlight technology in the United States lags behind the rest of the developed World due to antiquated laws. We're lucky we are no longer stuck with round sealed beam headlights. My European car, a German make has very sophisticated headlights but for this market the software to drive the matrix features are turned off. We are stuck with crap headlight technology since our government won't allow us to have nice things.

the more modern headlights are adb. these only been allowed since 2022 in the us. i think thats the reason non us headlights looked so much better in the past.

The matrix lights on Audi models in the United States are still crippled by software. I know that some have altered that to give full capability. My dealer naturally is playing dumb. Mine is a 2024 model. It does have laser high beams that work way outside of the city, but the partial blocking of light for oncoming traffic does not work. @@anneliese187

Solaris makes good buses. They are part of the Spanish company CAF.

Solaris is dogshit, the quality and replacement-parts wait are horrendous. In my area the identical Bus runs as in the Video just with different doors and seats, and compared to our Citaro and Lion's City busses, and even the Ivecos, they absolutely suck

@@heybenjii5544 really? That saddens me as a polish person, ive always been proud of the success of this company, its one of the most famous polish companies

@@foxy126pl6 Yes, really. And not only that. A friend of mine had to take buses on the way to work only and the operating company uses Solaris city buses only. These are so cheaply made, everything looks cheap and the hard plastic cracks everywhere. The seats are so thin and uncomfortable and have absolutely no room for tall people. You might think that the buses are only designed for small people. And the worst thing: The buses have no real suspension in the chassis at all. Driving is like driving with an old truck. That's unpossible at a passenger city bus with all the bad roads everywhere. This led to the friend no longer taking the buses and canceling his annual ticket. Now he rides with bike, which suits him better and gets him to work quicker because he can ride directly without having to take a detour, like the buses have to. Buyers can choose everything they want from the buses, but everything is still cheaply made and has no quality; that's absolutely unpossible. Best regards from Germany...

@@citroen-fan i see, but in my expirience the turkish mercedes buses are much more rattly than the solaris buses, at least here in Poland. I remember mercedes buses leaking water inside and the glass next to doors vibrating on every bump. And the seats are significantly better on solaris. Maybe the domestic market ones are better made? My city operates both solaris urbino and mercedes connecto.

Cool! I’m going to check out the eCitaro. Thanks for watching in Germany! That’s awesome!

@@BusDriverLife from a German rider's perspective, the MAN Lion's City and the MB Citaros feel like the "quintessential" city buses.

@@ska042 SIngapore now also has many Citaros & Lion's City but the latter's bodywork, while having a similar design to buses in Europe, is built by Malaysian coachbuilder Gemilang instead, maybe as it's cheaper. 3 door buses were rare until recently though as the engine is on the port side & thus a 3rd exit means having to step over the engine (with the country being RHD), which is less convenient. We also have a similar no. of Scania K230UBs not only used as public buses with Gemilang commuter bus bodywork, but also a few were fitted instead with bodywork from SC Auto/Chivalrous (for use as shuttle buses originally to serve a university's campus) that seemed to have been converted from a coach to a commuter bus design, so they're unaturally tall & also seem like they have more inertia, leading to more sluggish acceleration on upslopes & more lurching forward when braking, though they ride out road bumps better. Uniquely Singapore also has an almost equal no. of single & double-decker buses (60% vs 40%), with the latter originally consisting mostly Volve B9TLs but now with more ADL Enviro500s & MAN A95s too. We might also be the only customer of MAN A24 (the non-integral bodywork version of the A23 articulated bus I think). Now our gov't is buying only electric buses which come mainly from China instead e.g. BYD K9, Yutong E12(DD), though we also have 20x Linkkers

British RE,s from the late 60s looked like that

Sind halt ranzig

USA generally has much worse public transport coverage than Europe, which is why American schools have to use their own buses to get children to school in the morning and back home in the afternoon. Whereas in Europe, children usually just take a normal bus or train within the public transport system.

@@lolookie1682then you have places like Australia. Most places here have dedicated school bus routes, but they’re serviced by the local public city bus company. The school buses are the same as every other bus on the road, it’s just only school students are allowed on dedicated school routes.

i have the same thoughts. i only drive Firetrucks, even our oldest firetruck (30 years old) have a better seat area,

These buses usually serve line 44 and 84 in Brno, but they can also do 50 and E50, but those are usually sovered by Urbino 3rd generation buses.

The Isuzu is for Turkish market. The Solaris, as you say was filmed and is run in Brno, Czechia. 😉

@@CzHanz So a Japanese company produces busses since 1937 for Turkey only?

@@mrsimpleslowmo might be a sub-contractor under the name and supervision of isuzu

@@mrsimpleslowmo nope. I suppose they produce buses for many countries, but that particular one probably has specific features, unique to Turkey?

Very agreed like them too and they are fast!

@@joe125ful very fast and agile, despite their size

@@flyLSYes! Also in my willage we have new MAN bus its not that fast but smooth and spacy too. I rememeber whe i was young going to shool using old buses,loud,smelly,slow.. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jablonec_nad_Nisou,_autobusov%C3%A9_n%C3%A1dra%C5%BE%C3%AD,_bus_Karosa.jpg Something like this.

@@joe125ful Like the ones from Plzenský kraj? Those are good ones too

On the other hand that ramp for wheelchair passangers have to be deployed manually. I believe that most american/canadian buses have this ramp deployed electronically (or at least they were in Canada)

Yeah. Though they're spreading to more places. The Citivolt shown in the video has been sold to a few customers in Denmark now, and Denmark's largest bus importer, VBI Group has struck a deal with Isuzu to sell their electric buses here. They already had a partnership to sell Isuzu's Visigo midi-coaches, but this just expanded it. And VBI Group is no joke for the market here. They also have a bigger partnership with Iveco and Iveco Crossway buses sold through VBI group dominated all of Denmark in the 2010's.

Generally speaking most of the busses, trams, trolleybuses in Europe are from Turkey. I live in Novi Sad, Serbia and our city busses are Turkish BMC busses on natural gas and Polish Solaris electric busses. Timișoara uses Turkish made trams. Turkish automotive products maybe have lower prices but they are state of the art.

@@bnast6849 It depends very much on region and which country you're in, it can vary a lot just from country to country. Like in Denmark where I'm from, most new buses are either Chinese, German, or Dutch. And before the electric boom, Czech built Iveco buses were extremely popular, and before that Swedish/Polish Scania and Volvo buses.

Great info! That’s interesting!!

​@@drdewott9154 We used to have Volvo and Mercedes before the city opted for more greener fuels mainly LNG and electric. To be honest, I love diesel engines but I prefer to live in a city where public transport has least harmful emissions possible.

yes, i drive trams in Zürich and its fun to see peoples reactions when a HESS dives into a stop and its almost as long as the old Tram 2000

Thats why they are called Ligh Tram 😊

Yeah, I was really hoping he would react to a LighTram! Swiss public transport for the win haha

Solingen in Germany has a good number of those as well.

in North America roads are mostly straight, there is little need for that :)

Or get a job as a bus driver in Poland, many cities are looking for one 😉

@@kamilt909 Isn't there a language requirement, in case of emergency and such?

@@comdo831 basics are needed. We have many drivers from post Soviet countries, and they are not speaking fluently polish

@@kamilt909 In Singapore we were recruiting more bus drivers from China & people were complaining they were less fluent in English, to serve the minority races in the country

In Schweden, buses and lorries from MAN and Scania are serviced at the same workshops.

The Mercedes Benz was a test or pilot running a few years on a bustraject in the Netherlands. I have seen I in action thinking, how much will we see in the real model.

we're getting 92 of them in my city, the first 10-20 are already on the road. they look great and smooth to ride on

@@karevilenwhich city?

@@austriankangarooDen Haag

@@karevilen Lets make it 95. 58 18m and 37 12m. First 12m will arrive 3th week of april the first 18m will arrive in may. Going to be used as first to train there employes and in september to december the rest will arrive and then they are going to be used.

Really? That would be cool! We are basically down to only two major manufacturers right now..so there is room!

@@BusDriverLifeI also heard Rumors that Ebusco plans to enter the North American Market in the future

@@superbrownsheep3777 That'd be interesting but cautious. Ebusco is a controverisal manufacturer, and here in Denmark we've invested in a lot of Ebusco buses, but they've been some of the least reliable on the market. Especially their newer 3.0 model thats developed entirely in house with daring design choices like a fully carbon fibre construction and batteries built into the floor. I've heard reports from bus drivers that the buses dont handle well as if the very structural chassis of the buses cant handle the conditions of regular bus service and are shaking themselves apart.

@@superbrownsheep3777 not with ebusco 3.0 though, those are too lightweight for north american standards

​@@BusDriverLife if Solaris comes to US, it will differ from EU version to comply US standards and requirements and it will be designed like US bus too. Just have a look to Crown-Ikarus history: the articulated Ikarus 286 was just like the ordinary US bus made from US parts and it didn't look like Ikarus 280 or 283 model. The Škoda 14TrE and Škoda 14TrSF trolleybuses made for US also significally differed from European Škoda 14Tr or Škoda 14TrM.

Mannheim is the Place where mercedes-benz Busses and Trucks Are build

@@Dorian217 also there is a Mercedes bus and truck inovation and production center in Türkiye since 1967.

Thank you and I wish you the best on your journey!!

thumbs up!

Same here in Germany. If you want to take your bike with you, better pray the reserved space inside the bus opposite of the rear doors is actually empty, otherwise you might as well not even bother to get on

@@Knaeckebrotsaege In Singapore meanwhile people are already making noise at tourists who take our commuter buses (mostly CItaros) from the airport to downtown, complaining that their luggage takes up more space & that they're too stingy to take a taxi. Think that's the only bus that goes downtown (our gov't probably would never introduce a coach service as it might canibalize ridership from our airport train line (which is built to metro standard, so lots of space but not much seats). Furthemore both these buses & trains stop at suburbs along the way & can thus get crowded further down the route

I respect your opt and everyone has their own tastes but a lot of North American busses like proterra gilling and even artic electric new flyers have had many issues with agencies often having to send them back to factories to repair them. Also doesn’t make sense how all North American “low flow” busses are only 70% low flow (there’s stairs at the back) while in europe and the rest of the world it’s 100% low floor

Also the fact that a lot of European and Asian busses have 3 doors for more capacity but North American ones have only two, even only one sometimes (novabus suburban edition)

I agree for the most part. Aesthetic details matter a lot less than they would on cars and I’d rather have a bus that shows up every time. I do think that the overall design has some influence-a clean, modern-looking bus might attract more ridership than a utilitarian box would. In my opinion, New Flyer and BYD are doing pretty good on the exterior department.

Sorry, but what your are saying is like "oh, we don't need to improve our cars, the 20 years old ones are doing good, let us build just those"... Really?!

@TomTom-ik8dm That's not what Josh is saying; his point is that functionality matters more than aesthetics in a bus. Nobody is saying that buses shouldn't improve. They have, and they will.

I wish they were faster. They could be if they didn't dwell at stations for so long. Many UK bus networks insist on using vehicles with only 1 door so if you're sitting at the back, you often have to join a slow moving queue to get off, with little space for standees who aren't getting off to move out of your way as all the wheelchair/bike spaces have to be at the front near the only door. This, along with having to queue so the driver can double as a ticket inspector at every single stop creates a bottleneck for passenger movement, adding a lot of time to the journey. There are often no announcements about which bus and rail lines you can catch from which platform at the next stop or even what the next stop is so people often spend extra time finding those kinds of things out from the driver while getting on or off, causing more delay. In most of Europe, buses typically have 2 - 3 doors for regular buses and 3 - 5 doors for bendy buses so getting on and off is usually quite fast to keep things moving. There are also announcements and screens. I hope the UK can switch to that system. I also hope the tickets can be integrated because even daily and weekly tickets are often mode specific and single tickets are often only valid on the first bus you get on instead of an entire single journey using multiple lines and modes. I wish UK local transit a much brighter future.

@@lazrseagull54 In Turkey 3 doors buses getting on and off very good

@@lazrseagull54 we had bendy buses in London turned out they were just too long for the roads as to speed most of London now has a 20 mph limit

No problem! Hopefully I get a chance to meet you guys on one of your future trips to America!

@@BusDriverLife would have been an honor! 😁

I wanna say that Solaris buses looks so nice. Especialy new models. I dont like the "To much" futuristic approach of mercedes

Thank you!!

I’m actually going to do a video featuring that ikarus buses soon 😃

That was the best bus for everybody who had the chance to ride it. And a special version of Ikarus was sold in the USA.

I drove the ikarus 280 for a total of 4 years. I remember that time very friendly, mainly night lines through Prague.​@@transportromania

@@zbyneknejezchleba3871 They were quite loud though.

@@jeshkam yes I admit yes for the passenger but the noise in the driver's cabin was fine 👍

That’s cool!!

yes, because I bet there is very little anti-social behavior in Austria ;-)

@@bodazephyr6629 As an Austrian who uses busses daily, believe me, there is, especially at night...

​@@bodazephyr6629 As long as he's not driving in Vienna, everything should be fine... (The people there are everything but nice)

@@heybenjii5544 really, I thought Austria was so peaceful and quiet.

Did they retire all the Ikarus/Ikarbus busses?

@@AndrejaKostic There are a few articulated that run daily still. Mostly the last series that was basically MAN. From solos, the "Mercedes" are still running plus a few older models. And I think I saw the original low floor articulated bus that was on BeoTruck fair like 15 years ago a few months ago running.

That highly depends on the particular operator

I can say that I've never experienced that in Britain. I know that some/many coach drivers keep the same vehicle all the time. But I am on local bus services (US=transit buses), and in the course of the day my bus may be driven by four or five different drivers. I will drive two (or occasionally three) different buses in one day. So there are 16 buses on the route, but it takes 37 different drivers to provide the full service from 05:00-23:30

@@michaelgoodwin6565 here, in Romania, there are usually 2 drivers assigned to one bus. From the beginning of the working hours until around 1 PM one driver will be on that bus, then after 1 PM until the end of the work hours the other driver will be on the bus. This helps keep buses in good condition, as the two drivers can maintain it on their own and report any problems very easily

That sounds like the old ways in Malta.

In Singapore bus drivers may not be assigned a specific bus but may be assigned a specific bus service running at specific times for much of their career* (& I think the same is in HK too). So if a bus service is transferred to a different operator I think the drivers running them will automatically be transferred along too. So you'll see the same people driving the same bus services at the same time as before, just wearing different uniforms. When Go-Ahead (from London) entered our country & introduced interlining (where drivers switch between different routes throughout the day) it was found to be more stressful I think, & sparked a mass resignation in 2016 & another bus company had to provide drivers temporarily to avoid bus service cuts. * The same bus is usually used for the same service at the same time of the day every day for a few months before they're rotated around I think. Perhaps they're waiting for the contracts for the ads displayed on some buses to end, which may stipulate which routes the ads are to be displayed on.

A European bus can’t fold the seats in the front to accomodate wheelchair users. There is only space in the middle with a manual! lifted ramp. In the US, the front entry is wide enough to accomodate most wheelchair models and the ramp is operated by the driver. That’s better. This is also a thing I saw. People claiming that US Busses are too old should go to Prague or Sczeczin and see the vehicles there. Old East Bloc Tatras. Old soviet metros.

@@Canleaf08 I'm sorry, but seeing as a wheelchair user in the Netherlands, (where we mostly use buses from Germany, and less from Belgium, France, Poland and Hungary), there are always tip-up seats (most times 2, 3 or 4) at wheelchair spaces. In fact, I usually have to argue with people sitting on those seats once or twice a month just in order to place my wheelchair on that bus. That's the same for rural and city buses (and I use both) Manual or electric ramps is a bit more complicated. Where I live we have freezing weather at least once a year, electric ramps freeze up and are afterwards a total disaster, I have seen them work properly once (and no, that's not an exaggeration). And that bus was only a month in service. So I prefer manual ramps, at least they get that job done. However in Spain I saw very well working electric ramps. So yeah, if they work that would be great. If they do not work, please use manual.

@@Canleaf08 Idk nothing about Sczeczin but how could u say Prague has old buses? almost all are SOR NB12 (or articulated SOR NB18) and before them they used Irisbus citybus (Renault Agora) (in service ~1996-last in service 2020) which also looks decent in that time. Just search image of them and tell if u find them old and tatra style. With metros. Prague is using 2 types: Siemens ČKD M1 - Which I personaly thinks are really nice even now (created 1998) and renovated 81-71M (from 81-717/714) which looks not great not terrible.

@@Canleaf08 Prague has 100% low floor buses except couple vehicles in retro service. The local transport coordinator has strict rules about vehicle age so the average age of buses is less than 10 years. I don't get the complicated entry through first door. I take my stroller and enter directly from door to dedicated spot, it's only 2 meters away. Yes, ramp for wheelchairs is manual but every bus has kneeling function so the entry point is level with sidewalk (but drivers don't use it as often as should be). Also not many people are morbidly obese here that they would need to use the ramp often. 4 doors in 12 meter bus allow for fast exchange of passengers and that's what matters in busy city.

@@richardvanderlaak826 we definitely have the issue with winters causing door and ramp malfunctions over here as well (at least where I am in Southern Canada). our excessive use of road salt in particular causes corrosion issues too so our buses usually aren't road worthy any more past 18 years.

Yeah I’ve seen some of the van hools before passing through SF/Oakland. I’ve got to react to the eCitaro one day!

also ADL Enviro 500's are around in some places in the states and Canada, there were also some older enviro200's and ALX200's i believe but i'm not sure if they're still in service

@@xanpagebrown Yes true, I forgot about these

@@xanpagebrown Unitrans in Davis have some. @BusDriverLife Come on over on the Causeway Connection and check 'em out at the Silo.

In my town, in france, we have Mercedes Citaro. They are cool and, very important, they can take out a ramp fot disabled people.

Solaris does still make those though even for their 4th gen facelift and I know of at least one company in Germany that uses them. Not quite sure why (maybe cheaper to replace only one half?), but you're right that it's not very common anymore

Well...until the late 90'ths buses in Berlin did have split windsurfen, being in service until 2010 approximately... 😂

@@berndbarthel6885 yeah similar down here in Kassel

Yeah I have seen a Gillig before with the single glass windshield..it looked pretty cool. I forgot which agency though. I’ve seen the van hools..I’m not a fan of how they look. It will be interesting to possibly see an American version of a Solaris bus!

Van Hool is pretty interesting. In North America they have a reputation for being expensive and premium. But in Europe it couldn't be further opposite. Here across the pond, Van Hool's reputation is being some of the cheapest, lowest quality garbage ever manufacturered on the continent. They are not very well liked around here. Heck in Denmark, Tide Bus, who got the contract to operate all urban buses in the city of Aalborg, ordered 67 electric buses from Van Hool, alongside 40 from the Chinese manufacturer Golden Dragon. The latter has a sceptical reliability record but some contractors kept ordering their buses because they were dirt cheap. However the Van Hools have been even less reliable than the Golden Dragon buses. And Ive heard this directly from drivers who worked for Tide bus in Aalborg who have since quit and gotten new jobs at other contractors. Apparently the management at Tide was crappy too, completely inconsiderate of the actual needs of drivers or the realisms of what it takes to make the buses run reliably and on time. All they cared about was minimizing costs, and shovelling public money into their hands to get a good profit margin from their public contract.

Much of my family stays in Oakland. They never liked the VanHool buses.

I think there are also regulations in US to limit the manufacturing to US only, so no real competition from overseas manufacturers. Less competition, less needs to innovate and update.

@ yes exactly, but they still had plenty of time to set up manufactures before “build America” came along and pushed all those regulations. I really think there’s not enough public transit need as of right now to make companies move overseas either, this is seen with a lot of stuff like different car models sold globally, stuff for the interior of your house, europe has much more modern appliances for cooking of the same brand that aren’t sold in the US. I know this is very random, but the way money is spend in the US has a lot of influence on this, in europe they like to spend good money on quality, modern and luxurious buses cause it improves the quality of life, in the US most things are done as cheaply as possible like renovations, repairs to things, road projects, infrastructure and also buses.

That's part of it but cost is also a factor. No city wants to pay for a fancy bus that drunk people will puke in.

@@mediocreman2 Fancy that we don't have that problem in here

@@mediocreman2 cause they’re not doing anything to help the homeless nor do they discourage driving to make taking the bus more attractive. Other countries have done it, but ofc these cities lack courage

As someone who drives Alexander Dennis buses in the UK, and has been onboard one of your lovely GO Enviro 500's and had a peek at the cab, I think the 500's cab is slightly larger and of the same sort of design as our newer buses that started being made 2016 onwards, they have a much nicer cab design. Some of our older ones (2010) have a very bad design for leg room in the cab, so your left leg ends up getting cramp. If you want to see what I put up with (albeit the opposite way round) go up to Collingwood where the CTA uses Alexander Dennis Enviro 200 and NewFlyer MiDi (same bus different production facility) extensively.

Brit here, living in S.E Asia: I had no idea Canada had British buses! Alexander Dennis, no less lol. They were quite popular in Hong Kong and Singapore too, going back decades. In Honkers and Singapore, they were fitted with extra-large capacity locally-made bodies, able to carry well over a hundred people!

@@swanvictor887 Yup! The Enviro500 is used by a few transit operators here in Canada, majority are tourist buses, and for GO Transit they are suburban styled with 1 door and coach bus styled seats

Thank you for watching!!

Yup I'll take something that just works over something that is the new latest and greatest tech

Parisian newer diesel busses do not have window at the back any more. No last tango in Paris :). Electric should be able to , though

less steering is needed in the US because the roads are more straight, usually in a grid system. European roads are usually narrow and winding, so lots of steering input is required from the driver.

The shells are also adjustable, and often are more tilted in operation…but tilted up when the driver gets in/out to make maneuvering easier. It’s also super common on older busses for operators to just swap steering wheels around between coaches when one needs a repair. I’ve seen lots of Gillig wheels on NFI busses, for example.

There are quite a lot of Alexander Dennis Enviro500 MMCs at Causeway Bay in Hong Kong.

@@CaptainM792 In this case the causeway is the bridge between Sacramento, CA (where​ @BusDriverLife works) and Davis, CA.

@@nmpls You can even spot a Causeway Connection bus in the beginning of this video that connects the two cities using said causeway.

Several Bay Area agencies operate double decker busses, along with Foothill Transit in SoCal. Further north, Community Transit in the Seattle area uses “Double Talls” (because coffee!) on their commuter routes along with some contracted Sound Transit routes.

@BusDriverLife Or go to French Carribean overseas departments ! :)

The Invero was a futuristic looking N. American bus. It wouldn't look out of place on a European street. Even the dash board was Euro styled. Too bad it didn't last long.

Last split screens I can remember Volvo B10B and can only remember name is they were known as BLOBS mid to late 90's maybe even into the early 00

No doubt they'll be back. There was a fashion for single-piece screens in the early '70s but a lot of operators dropped them due to the cost of replacement; fifty years later they are fashionable again. The same applies to bonded glazing; everybody thought it was wonderful as it stiffened the body and made washing easier, but then people realised it was a sod to replace in case of breakage and there was a move back to gasket-glazing. Now the trend seems to be going the other way again. Nothing new under the sun!

MAN Lion's City are from poland and Intercity are from Turkey

It's pretty similar in Auckland NZ, actually. Lots of Alexander Denis Enviro series buses. E200s, E200MMCs, E200XLBs, E400s.

wdym vandals? it's as if there were more vandals in Poland than in the rest of EU which is not the case. Most of the buses in my city in Poland have generally been in great shape.

Best bus for me is also Ikarus 280....

Ikarus 280 for life!

Hopefully they don't inherit CAF's quality control. In the rail world CAF are known for poor quality control and poor ride quality.

​@@mrvwbug4423In Luxembourg we have CAF trams they work well.

Aside from complying with the (outdated) more stringent safety and crash standards, why do you think they'd need to have their suspension modified or a different powertrain? Citaros are used all around Europe in all kinds of climate and geography, and either in urban or intercity configuration they're reliable (and that's why they are so popular)

@@MathiasBruno The Citaro model specifically would probably be fine aside from perhaps adding ugly US standard bumpers. If for diesel a Cummins engine isn't already offered they might need to add that as well depending on transit agency preference. I'm thinking more of the suspension modifications Alexander-Dennis had to specifically make with their Enviro200 before selling it here, or the poor ride quality of a Van Hool AG300 compared to a New Flyer D60LFR.

@@mrvwbug4423 Really about of poor quality of CAF trains... old brands who worked here in Spain (Macosa, f.e.) had built better products (nowadays, there are some 440s and 592s series riding yet at Spanish railways, and there were built at 70s and 80s). And old models of CAF were better built than now. But if you want worse products, you can take AnsaldoBreda train (at Madrid underground there riding with 7000 and 9000 series and their quality is awful -compare with 2000 and 5000 series, older than these trains but better built-). Best greetings from Spain!!!

True!

Why more difficult to repair ? The whole thing is moving and gives easy access to hidden parts…

@@aoilpe More moving parts that can break down. A solid dashboard usually maintenance just unscrew a few screws and access the part(s) they need to fix, this looks a little complicated to remove a mn adjustable dashboard.

Yeah, I worked on airplanes and they were the same way: ugly, but functional and repairable. The idea was to minimize downtime and cost.

My company used to work with Dennis buses, about 10-15 years ago? They also had a split windshield. Never drove them myself, but they were popular with the drivers because their speed limiters were easily broken.

I think the issue is NA is car centric and bus for the “poor arse” commoners, the city councils just not funding bus service to a high enough level to make it make sense, plus the residential area is so spread out... ain't no one gonna walk in weather for up to an hour to that bus stop which might not have regular service ...

Its a shame, almost like the American manufacturers were not even trying at the time. As (European) passenger, I care about the bus being clean, mostly on time and taking me where I need to go, but drivers spend there years of their lives there, they should enjoy some reasonable comfort.

City buses are way more durable than a Class A motorhome, so the difference in cost is understandable.

@leftbas65 Yes, a lot can go wrong when you you have a machine that has lots of moving parts, the more parts that move, the more that goes wrong, but you'd think things like plastic is way cheaper than leather as in some of those fancy buses overseas.

Completely different design, longevity, and function, but yes they're not cheap.

In Britain, the disabled and pushchair area is usually near the front of the bus, behind the front wheels and in front of most of the seats (many buses outside London only have a front door). This enables the driver to deploy the passenger ramp when needed for wheelchairs to board/alight.

​@@jerry2357 I really dislike the whole 1 door thing in the UK and every time I visit, I'm sad to see it still hasn't been abolished. At least put it at the middle of the bus or something. If you're sitting at the back and need to get off at a busy stop, you have to join a slow queue spanning the length of the whole bus and because all the wheelchair/bike spaces have to be all the way at the front, standees have nowhere to move out of your way, adding a lot of time to the journey at each stop. Drivers in the rest of Europe just get out and walk to the middle door where they can manually operate the ramp, which just takes a couple of seconds. Having 3 - 5 doors is a lot less stressful for claustrophobic people.

In the US, ADA seating is almost always at the front of the coach, with the wheelchair ramp integrated into three front door. This ensures someone boarding in a wheelchair can still pay at the farebox as they board, and makes it far easier for the driver to align and deploy the ramp in the first place - especially at stops where the coach doesn’t have space to pull entirely flush with the curb.

Yeah they have very easy access through the front door because the bus kneels and disabled seating is near the driver. You want disabled passengers close to the driver in case they need assistance, are hard of hearing, etc.

@@jerry2357 I grew up in the UK and lived in Germany for the last 20 years. Of course things probably have changed in that time, but coming to Germany and finding space for wheelchairs and pushchairs on buses was a revelation.

In Europe the driver still usually has to assist with wheelchair loading, and with the high height of a lot of European motorcoaches that wheelchair lift is more like an elevator inside the bus.

It's a nice thought, but not realistic to have an assistant for every disabled person.