Electric bus service starts in Castelló
Castelló City Council in Spain has announced new services for a new type of bus line. The city itself didn't have many opportunities for a tram system, so they decided to look somewhere else. And they came up with a French solution: a guided electric bus. The chosen model, called Cristalys, is a shorter version of the Civis currently working in Clermont-Ferrand in France. The system has been called "TVRCas" (Transporte de Vía Reservada de Castellón).
The model is accessible for wheelchairs because the motors are inside the wheels. The EV bus is guided by a cam placed on the top of the windshield which "reads" the painted lines on its assigned platform. There's a driver that can override the system in case of failure.
According to the official site, the bus will run every 20 minutes linking the center of the city with the outskirts. It seats 8 passengers, but it can carry up to 35 (standing up). Maximum speed is 37 km/h (22 mph) but that should be plenty, since the average speed of urban buses is calculated at 15 km/h (9 mph). The bus' batteries need four hours to recharge.
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[Source: Ajuntament de Castelló]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Karl-Uwe Strunzen 9:15PM (12/17/2007)
Simply awesome.
I knew Irisbus (Fiat+Renault) were leaders in CNG and electric buses in Europe but I hadn't seen this model before.
I see several advantages with this. If we really wanted to start getting rid of cars, a bus with no driver is probably where we'll end up (like the metro with no driver in Toulouse). The motors inside the wheels should also make them more efficient. Besides freeing up space for wheelchairs, this also could make way for bicycles.
I've always thought that to make bicycles an alternative form of transport, they would need to be combined with some kind of public transport designed for them as well. This could well be a viable solution. Besides a cam, other sensors could be incorporated (such as GPS etc) to make the system more robust.
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