Bus board

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Bus stop with Kassel curb (Czech Republic, 2009)

A bus board is a concrete profile that is used as a curb at stops where low-floor vehicles ( buses , trams or light rail vehicles) stop. The rounded curb was developed in Kassel and gave its name to the design that is common today.

history

The invention of special bus shelves followed with the introduction of low-floor buses and modern low-floor trams in the late 20th century. In 1976, Neoplan Bus GmbH designed the first "low-entry bus" that did not catch on. In the 1980s, the Association of Public Transport Companies (VÖV) commissioned the creation of a concept for the standard bus II - this resulted in the pilot series of the Neoplan N 416 from 1982, and MAN's competitor Daimler presented the Mercedes-Benz O 405 in 1984 . On the basis of the standard buses, low-floor versions have now been created and presented for testing at VöV, first in 1987 the Kässbohrer Setra S 300 NC, which went into series production in 1989. Daimler also developed a low-floor version of the standard bus in the Mercedes-Benz O 405 N , which went into production in small numbers from 1989 and proved to be a robust and successful model in the following years. Neoplan, too, was again producing low-floor buses that went into production as N 4014, 4015, 4016 NF from 1990 onwards.

With the increased use of low-floor buses from the late 1980s onwards, options were sought to further improve the accessibility to buses. The low-floor buses had essentially reduced access from two or three steps to one step. However, this is still a hurdle for wheelchairs . Raising the access platform at the bus stops is not sufficient, as buses usually stop at a distance from the curb that creates a gap that the wheels cannot negotiate. However, the parallel introduction of low-floor trams showed that barrier-free access can be made possible with a good horizontal alignment.

With the possibilities of barrier-free construction for buses in the 1990s, the interest of the transport companies in other concepts waned so much that MAN and Daimler-Benz stopped the production of high-floor city buses in Europe in 2001. While the first special bus boards were still directly on the Kassel special board, other manufacturers of kerbstones followed with designs that also optimize the vertical and horizontal alignment of buses.

Kassel special board

Efforts towards barrier-free design culminated in the first part of DIN 18024 in 1996 ("Barrier-free building - Part 1: streets, squares, paths, public transport and green spaces and playgrounds; planning principles"). Kassel was a pioneer in this regard and has been testing low-floor buses for local public transport since 1992. The use of low-floor buses in local public transport with entry platforms, however, showed increased tire wear due to contact with the curb. The Kasseler Verkehrs-Gesellschaft has therefore been collecting ideas since 1994 to remedy the problem with the help of a special design of the curb profile, or “special board” for short. A manufacturer was found with Fröhlich Bau AG in Gensungen, south of Kassel, who had a patented profile stone (EP0544202 / 1993). After its liquidation, production was transferred to Profilbeton GmbH in Borken (Hessen) , also south of Kassel. By 2001, around a sixth of the bus stops in Kassel had been retrofitted with the Kassel special board.

The Kassel design is characterized by the fact that the curb is particularly smooth and also curved in cross-section, so that a bus with its tires can run onto it without excessive wear and tear without climbing up. A contact area in front of the curve prevents the board from being pushed inwards. The top of the profile has a non-slip structure and can therefore be easily felt by the blind and visually impaired. The light-colored concrete used creates a high contrast to the pavement reinforcement and thus makes it easier for the visually impaired to recognize it. The possibility of extremely close approach together with the height of the board make barrier-free access to the means of transport possible.

Dresden Combibord

"Combibord" platform

The Dresden Combibord is a parallel development of a concrete profile that is derived from the platforms of the low-floor trams. The development began with the introduction of the first low-floor tram cars in Dresden (of the articulated railcar NGT6DD in the period 1995–1998); the Combibord patent was granted in July 1997 (DE 19730055). The rounded section gives the bus the opportunity to drive close to the tram platform.

The Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe (DVB) name the following properties for the regular application at their stops:

  • Board height of the platform in the door area of ​​the tram at least 23 cm
  • Board height of the platform in the door area of ​​the bus at least 18 cm
  • The remaining threshold between the platform edge and the tram is a maximum of 5 cm
  • The remaining threshold between the platform edge and the bus is a maximum of 8 cm
  • Residual gap between platform edge and tram / bus maximum 5 cm
  • In the case of stop islands, a barrier-free transition from / to the public sidewalk area with a maximum remaining threshold of 3 cm and a maximum ramp gradient of 6%

variants

  • The Erfurt bus kerbstone has been in use since 2007 and has a height of 24 cm. (In Kassel bus curbs with a height of 18 cm were used).
  • The Berlin Combibord used a construction height of 21 cm above the upper edge of the rail (in Dresden, profile elements with 24 cm above the upper edge of the rail are used).

Applications

  • In Graz, Kassel-type curbs have been used for the redesign of bus stops on Graz Linien for several years . Shape: concave rounded bottom, slightly inclined vertical surface, rounded edge, horizontal surface non-slip and textured with raised knobs - up to a certain distance from the edges of the surface. The step height is 16 cm. At Borden, where buses and trams arrive, such as Jakominiplatz (night buses), curbs with a step height of only 11-12 cm are used, as the running boards extended by some types of trams would collide with a 16 cm high step (as of March 2018) .

Web links

Commons : Kasseler Sonderbord  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual notes

  1. ^ A b Kasseler Verkehrs-Gesellschaft AG: History . Archived from the original on December 2, 2012. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 2, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kvg.de
  2. ↑ EP0544202: Kerbstone and stop for buses and the like, especially for combined tramway and bus traffic . European Patent Office. Retrieved September 24, 2013.
  3. ↑ a b Dipl.-oec. Jürgen Burmeister: Just get in (PDF; 940 kB) In: NahverkehrsPraxis . 2001. Retrieved December 2, 2012.
  4. ↑ Limiting a lane for buses and rail vehicles at combined stops (PDF; 186 kB) In: European patent based on DE 19730055 . European Patent Office. July 10, 1998. Archived from the original on September 27, 2013. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved on September 24, 2013: "Priority: July 14, 1997 DE 19730055" @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / data.epo.org
  5. ↑ With DVB AG barrier-free through Dresden (PDF; 1.9 MB) In: DVB fact . Dresden transport company. S. 4. 2008. Retrieved June 19, 2017.
  6. ↑ Other low-floor bus stops . In: press release . Erfurt civil engineering and traffic office. October 2, 2007. Archived from the original on February 6, 2013. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 2, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.erfurt.de
  7. ↑ Berlin Combiborde 21 . Rail concrete. Retrieved on December 2, 2012.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.railbeton.de  
  8. ↑ Telephone call Mr. Ing.Hopferwieser, Holding Graz , March 13, 2018.