More Room for the extended Solaris Urbino 18.75 Articulated Bus
2012-10-16 Source：www.chinabuses.org
Summarize：Extended articulated bus offers room for additional row of four seats
Commonality of parts ensured by length extension of wheelbase only
Longest bus in the Solaris product range
Additional length also available on rigid buses with new Solaris Urbino 12.9
www.chinabuses.org: The cost of motoring keeps rising, as does the time car drivers spend stuck in traffic jams. It is therefore no wonder more and more people do the right thing and switch to public transport. But as buses across Europe get busier, bus operators may find the good news of increasing passenger numbers tempered by capacity getting squeezed. Often a little more room is all that is needed to solve the problem – and that little bit of extra space has just been added to the Solaris offer. Enter the new Urbino 12.9 and Urbino 18.75.
You almost have to look twice to notice there is something different about these new buses, and that is just how it should be: this is evolution rather than a revolution of lots of added length that would force operators to make costly adjustments to their infrastructure or even to their operating practices. The extra length of the Urbino 12.9 and the Urbino 18.75 adds welcome space to the passenger saloon, but they are driven, serviced and garaged just like their standard length counterparts, making it easy to integrate them into any fleet.
Solaris’ two new models are stretched versions of the bestselling Urbino 12 and Urbino 18, extended by 90 and 75 centimetres respectively. Incidentally, this makes the new Urbino 18.75 the longest Solaris bus ever offered. On both types, an extra row of four seats can be fitted, giving a boost to passenger capacity. The added length is in the wheelbase between the first and second axles, slightly increasing the turning circle – in the articulated bus it rises from 23.0 metres to 24.1 metres – without affecting basic handling. Front and rear overhangs are unchanged, ensuring that common parts are shared with their shorter siblings.
The additional vehicle length does not change the tried and tested powertrain of these Solaris buses. The standard option for the Urbino 18.75 is a lively DAF diesel engine. At 9.2 litres volume, it develops 265 kW, which are transmitted through a DIWA automatic gearbox supplied by Voith Turbo.
The Finnish city of Tampere meanwhile has opted for a parallel hybrid solution for their pair of Urbino 12.9 Hybrid, set to enter service towards the end of this year. These are the first „streched“ Solaris to be sold.
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