Bus Solutions from MAN For
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Bus solutions from MAN for
sustainable urban mobility
MAN Truck & Bus at the 60th UITP World Congress in Geneva.
Global urbanisation, increasing pressure on transport systems and with regard to air and noise pollution in cities as well as climate change necessitate new solutions for urban mobility. At the 60th World Congress of the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) from May 26 through 30, 2013 in Geneva, MAN Truck & Bus is presenting environmentally friendly and efficient solutions for mobility in cities.
How to design the metropolitan centers of tomorrow - that is the subject of the current study by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and MAN, "What cities want". This study puts across several innovative solutions and provides an overview of the varied strategies for sustainable urban mobility.
A wide range of bus chassis and city buses, individual service and repair packages as well as up-to-date services - MAN Truck & Bus will on request combine its recognised competence in buses with systemic services offered by selected partners for the joint development of tailor-made Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) solutions. Cities can thus design a flexible, economical and environmentally friendly local public transport system as an alternative or as a supplement to a rail-bound system.
MAN Lion's City GL in Euro VI for Lausanne
Representing the efficient MAN family of city buses at the UITP stand is a Lion's City GL, which will subsequently go into regular service in the city of Lausanne. The 18.75-meter long articulated bus, which complies with the new, eco-friendly Euro VI emission standard, is part of a major order totalling 50 city buses that MAN will be delivering to the Transports publics de la région Lausannoise (TL) in the course of this year. The MAN Lion's City GL on display has 41+1 seats and standing room for 119 passengers. It is driven by an MAN D20 common-rail engine in Euro VI with an output of 265 kW (360 hp). Four swing/sliding doors (Doors 2, 3 and 4 with electric drive) ensure that passengers can board and alight quickly and comfortably, while the driver has six video cameras for monitoring this process. A 42-kW air-conditioning system optimised for weight and a passenger-compartment heating system delivering over 30 kW make sure that the on-board climate is pleasant at all times of the year. Energy-saving LED interior lighting, two TFT dual monitors for up-to-the-minute passenger information and stainless-steel uprights complete the interior equipment of the vehicle exhibited.
How metropolitan centers are designing the mobility of tomorrow
Around the world, more and more people are being attracted to the major cities. According to the UN, by 2050 the world's urban population will have increased by 85 percent to 6.3 billion people. More than two thirds of the total population will then be living in cities. In "What Cities Want", a current study carried out for MAN by the Technical University of Munich, 15 metropolitan centers from around the world give accounts of how they want to develop attractive forms of urban mobility in the future.
Using examples from the cities of Ahmedabad, Beirut, Bogotá, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Copenhagen, London, Los Angeles, Lyon, Melbourne, Munich, St. Petersburg, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Singapore, the study shows what opportunities urbanisation brings with it. Even today, these cities are creating the prerequisites for efficient, accessible and ecologically sound mobility. For the populace and the local companies, the focus is on reachability, attractiveness and the quality of life in the cities.
The top priority: expansion and improvement of all aspects of local public transport. This entails primarily more routes, higher frequencies and greater reliability of service. This is how major cities are reacting to the demands of their citizens: next to travelling time, the quality of what local public transport offers is decisive in their selection of transport mode.
"We want people to use local public transport, but we're still making it difficult for them with today's ticket and tariff systems," explains Anders Nielsen, CEO of MAN Truck & Bus AG. This is why cities are making targeted investments, not only in the infrastructure for local public transport, but increasingly also in user-friendly information and communications systems.
Integrated mobility plans, combined modes of transport, ambitious environmental objectives and right-of-way for alternative drives: the study puts across several innovative solutions and provides an overview of the varied strategies for sustainable urban mobility.
MAN Lion's City Euro VI: pioneer in environmental protection
MAN has been constantly investing in the further development of the commercially successful MAN Lion's City bus family. As early as 2011, the Lion's City Euro VI, MAN launched the first city bus worldwide that complies with the mandatory emission standards going into effect on January 1, 2014. MAN EuroVI buses meet the very highest emission requirements for inner city transport and are exceptionally economical at the same time.
MAN has already been using the key technologies necessary for Euro VI - EGR (exhaust-gas recirculation) and SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) - in commercial vehicles with great success for several years. MAN's particulate filter technology CRTec has been in series operation since as far back as the year 2000. On this foundation, MAN will consolidate these tried and tested technologies and coordinate them optimally with each other for Euro 6. The dynamic characteristics for which MAN engines are renowned also distinguish the Euro VI range, while power and torque correspond to the EEV-compliant engines. A further reduction in fuel consumption was an extremely important goal for the developers.
For this reason, the most important success factor in the Euro VI development was unifying two goals with opposing physical principles: the reduction of NOx fuel consumption, and consequently of CO2 emission. MAN has been able to reduce the fuel consumption of its engines continually over the past few years, while at the same time meeting the ever more stringent requirements regarding nitrogen oxide reduction. The SCR process used in Euro VI enables the operation of the engine to be optimised for low fuel consumption. Reduction of the nitrogen oxides formed in this process takes place in the catalytic converter, which is compactly integrated in the exhaust silencer. In the course of the series-production and field tests, data on consumption was continually collected. The result: MAN's Euro VI city buses used an average of three to five percent less fuel than their EEV counterparts.
The MAN Lion's City Hybrid: rigorous reduction of CO2 in cities
After its highly successful roll-out, the innovative MAN Lion's City Hybrid city bus is already operating in a large number of European communities. Recently, the urban transport authorities in Paris and Barcelona ordered 17 and ten MAN Lion's City Hybrid buses respectively. These cities provide practical evidence that the serial hybrid technology delivers savings potential of up to thirty percent, along with proof that MAN is putting the economical technologies of tomorrow on the road today. The continual braking and pulling-away at bus stops and traffic lights are exactly the areas where hybrid technology comes to the fore. Whilst conventional buses convert their braking energy to heat, the MAN Lion's City Hybrid stores braking energy in ultracaps and transforms it into power for its two electric drive motors. Intelligent energy management controls the energy flow and switches the diesel engine off when it is in overrun, for example, or when the vehicle is stationary. Secondary energy consumers like the air-conditioner are electrically powered by the energy storage on the roof of the bus. The hybrid city bus thus emits no exhaust gases at bus stops and can pull away noiselessly under purely electrical power. This technology package makes the Lion's City Hybrid the most efficient option when it comes to CO2 emissions and pioneering the future of urban transport. With its serial hybrid drive, the low-floor bus saves up to 30 percent on diesel and CO2. In addition, thanks to its long engine switch-off periods and operation within the ideal speed range, the MAN Lion's City Hybrid achieves even better exhaust gas figures than a conventional EEV-compliant diesel vehicle.
Natural gas and biogas – MAN buses for the alternative fuel of the future
MAN is the market leader in natural-gas-powered city buses, supplying a range of Lion's City CNG models as solo or articulated buses in lengths from 12 to 18.75 metres. The portfolio also includes chassis for city and intercity buses, and CNG engines from 162 to 228 kW (220 to 310 hp) for external customers. CNG engines and buses from MAN can also be run on treated biogas, which makes operation CO2 neutral. CNG buses also run particularly quietly because combustion in the gas-powered engine, like its petrol-driven counterpart, is initiated by spark plugs and therefore smooth as silk.
With their three-way catalytic converter and lambda=1 control, the CNG engines from MAN meet the EuroVI exhaust-gas standard without additives or particulate filters. Since the IAA 2012, EuroVI-compliant CNG buses from MAN have been available on order and will be delivered in the course of 2013.
The enormous experience MAN has had with gas-powered buses benefits the customer not only when it comes to getting advice on purchasing, but also in the planning and development of the fuel and service infrastructure. It goes without saying that MAN Service is completely familiar with the maintenance and repair of the high-pressure gas systems and that the global supply of spare parts for gas-powered buses is assured. If the customer requests it, training courses will ensure that MAN's know-how is competently transferred to the customer's own service personnel or an external service team. This ensures the smooth operation of the gas-powered buses made by MAN.
Moreover, natural gas is an economical alternative for public transport companies: in many countries, gas is cheaper than diesel, in addition to which operators of gas-powered buses can often profit from state-funded incentives aimed at increasing the percentage of natural gas in the fuel mix.
Finally, natural gas pioneers the way towards a later move to a supply system for gaseous, regeneratively-produced fuels such as synthetic gas or hydrogen.
Bus Rapid Transit Systems from MAN for an efficient local public transport system
Bus Rapid Transit systems are relatively easy to integrate into existing urban structures. They enable the modernisation of a city's transport infrastructure without the need for extensive construction work on putting in underground lines, for example. This makes them the most efficient local public transport systems by far in terms of their overall CO2 balance, which takes into account the building of the transport infrastructure, the manufacturing of the means of transport and the actual conveying of the passengers. Moreover, BRT systems ensure with a great degree of certainty that passengers will get to their destinations on time: buses are more flexible and can make detours when the unforeseen happens - blocked streets on their route, for example.
The foundation of any BRT system is formed by modern city buses with high passenger capacities and interiors whose layouts are optimised so that the flow of passengers is unobstructed. Other possible characteristics are separate lanes and platform stops where tickets are sold and access is automatically controlled – i.e. before the bus is boarded, in order to optimise the passenger flow. RT systems also offer intelligent traffic management by, for example, transmission of the current positions of the buses or prioritisation at traffic lights.
The wide range of bus chassis and complete buses from MAN forms an excellent basis for any BRT system. In several Chinese cities BRT routes are serviced by buses made under licence from MAN / NEOPLAN. In Dubai and Abu Dhabi, in part on bus-only lanes, buses from MAN and NEOPLAN transport thousands of people smoothly and fast to their destinations every day - MAN and its service partners also ensure the economical, round-the-clock availability of the vehicles.
A state-of-the-art BRT system is currently being erected in the cities of Haifa and Tel Aviv. The first line will go into operation around the middle of this year. MAN Truck & Bus is delivering 172 articulated bus chassis with EEV engines for the "Metronit" network. The futuristically designed buses are low-floor from end to end.
The Transport Efficiency Program by MAN Truck & Bus
The amount of transport and traffic on Europe's roads continues to rise. At the same time, the long-term dwindling of energy resources is making transport increasingly more expensive.As one of the world’s leading manufacturers of buses and trucks, MAN Truck & Bus makes an important contribution to the continued improvement of transport efficiency. MAN offers a comprehensive efficiency program to reduce total cost of ownership. Transport efficiency, consolidated in the fields of technology, service, the driver and future expertise, protects the environment and represents added value for our customers.
The MAN Group is one of Europe's leading industrial players in transport-related engineering, with annual revenues of approximately €15.8 billion in 2012. MAN is a supplier of trucks, buses, diesel engines, turbo machinery and special transmissions and has around 54,300 employees worldwide. MAN's business areas are all leaders in their markets.
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