Wrightbus
| Wrightbus
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | Limited |
| founding | 1946 |
| Seat | Ballymena , Northern Ireland |
| management | Jo Bamford |
| Number of employees | approx. 1400 (2019) |
| Branch | Automotive industry |
| Website | www.wrightbus.com |
Wrightbus , also known as Wright for short, is a Northern Irish manufacturer of buses and bus kits , as well as a former manufacturer of bodies for commercial vehicles based in Ballymena . The company is part of the Wrights Group , which includes other companies that develop and manufacture components for Wrightbus and ensure customer support .
history
Wrightbus was founded in 1946 after carpenter and company founder Robert Wright received an order from a local bakery to repair their vans with superstructures made of planked wood. The resulting body shop manufactured sales vehicles and superstructures for trucks in the first few years , while the first superstructures for buses based on the chassis of light trucks were built.
Wright presented the first structure for a city bus in 1978. The frame for it was made of steel , which did not meet the manufacturer's requirements for corrosion resistance . As a result, they looked for alternatives and found what they were looking for in Switzerland : the M5438 modular system made of aluminum special profiles presented by Alusuisse in 1980 was specially designed for the requirements of bus manufacturing. From 1986 bus bodies were produced under license from Alusuisse in the Wright factory in Ballymena. The vehicle types with aluminum bodies found good sales in Great Britain from the beginning of the 1990s . In particular, the as Handybus called midibus based on the Dennis Dart and the Endurance based on the Volvo B10B helped that Wright leader was in the British market.
In 1993 Wright presented the Pathfinder 320, the first low-floor bus with chassis from Dennis and Scania , followed in 1996 by the Liberator on the chassis of the Volvo B10L . However, the Alusuisse system, which was designed for high-floor buses, significantly restricted the arrangement of the units and the designs of the vehicles always had to be checked by the Swiss engineers for their resilience. Wright therefore decided to let the license agreement expire and in autumn 1996 opened his own engineering department, which further developed the existing designs. In the first phase, the design from the time of the Alusuisse license was retained, but it was adapted to other chassis. The most important development in this regard was the Fusion , the first articulated bus in the UK. This was developed on a Volvo B10LA chassis at the request of the First Group and presented on October 5, 1999. A total of 40 vehicles of this type were then ordered by First for use in Manchester , Leeds and Glasgow before the vehicle type was replaced.
In 2000 Wright presented the so-called Millennium Design , which represented a clear break with the previously produced bus bodies due to the rounded shapes. With the introduction of the new design, the names of the products have also been restructured. Vehicles on Volvo chassis were now called Eclipse , those on Scania Solar and those on DAF or VDL Pulsar . The designations for articulated cars were supplemented by Fusion , as well as for the double-decker bus with Gemini, which was offered from 2001 . Only the midibus, known as the Cadet , did not receive an extensive facelift and until 2010 was produced on a VDL chassis largely in the design from the 1990s.
In 2006 Wright presented the StreetCar (English for tram ), an articulated bus on a Volvo B7LA chassis with a tram-like front, which was developed for the Bus Rapid Transit System ftr in York . The 39 vehicles delivered for this purpose also attracted attention in the United States. In 2006 the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC) ordered 50 StreetCars in a version for right-hand traffic , which according to the specifications should be designed as hybrid buses . Since Volvo did not have a suitable chassis on offer at that time, the BGH-N2C chassis from Carrosserie Hess was used . After the first two sales successes, there were no orders for the StreetCar. As part of the trials with the ftr system, the vehicles delivered were also used in Leeds, Swansea and London Luton Airport . After the ftr program was discontinued in 2012, the StreetCars were modernized and have been in use as a hyperlink on route 72 between Leeds and Bradford ever since .
In contrast to the StreetCar, three-axle double-decker buses for the Asian market were more successful. Between 2003 and 2011, Wright supplied a total of 500 vehicles to Kowloon Motor Bus in Hong Kong . 1,000 of these buses followed between 2010 and 2015, albeit optically similar to the Gemini 2, for SBS Transit in Singapore .
In 2007, Wright presented the newly developed Gemini 2 in addition to the conventional version with a diesel engine, as well as a version with a serial hybrid drive. For the first time in Wright's company history, these vehicles were not produced on the basis of a complete chassis from a third-party manufacturer, but rather partially integrally with chassis modules from VDL. The single-decker Eclipse 2 and double-decker versions on Volvo chassis with parallel hybrid drive followed in 2008 and rounded off the new generation of vehicles with a visual similarity to the StreetCar.
In December 2009, Wright was awarded the contract to develop a type of bus for London that would be reminiscent of the famous Routemasters . The first prototype with a drive train from Cummins and Siemens as well as a specially developed chassis was delivered in 2011, the commissioning of the series vehicles followed from spring 2012. By December 2017, a total of 1,000 of the so-called New Routemasters had been produced before the London government decided for cost reasons to refrain from further procurements. The New Routemaster is still in the Wright program together with the Short Routemaster presented in 2016 on a Volvo B5TL chassis.
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As the successor to the Cadet midibus, the StreetLite was presented in 2010 , although the external appearance of the new series was only partially adapted to the other series. The StreetLite is available with a classic axle arrangement ( door forward ) in a 10.2 and 10.8 meter long version and since 2011 as a wheel forward version (WF) with a front axle in front of the passenger door and 8.8 or 9.5 meters in length. The 11.5-meter-long StreetLite Max solo bus version followed in 2012, and from October 2013 the short WF versions were also sold in continental Europe as the VDL Citea MLE .
With the introduction of the Euro 6 standard in 2014, Wright adapted the appearance of the Gemini series as part of a facelift. In addition to the Gemini 3 on a Volvo chassis, the StreetDeck , an integral double-decker with a 5.1-liter diesel engine from Daimler , was also introduced. The single-decker series StreetLite and StreetCar were only technically adapted.
In July 2019, it was announced that Wrightbus had got into economic difficulties and was looking for a buyer. After this proved unsuccessful, a company spokesman announced on September 25, 2019 that the company had filed for bankruptcy. The cause is that customers had postponed orders that had already been placed due to the uncertainty about an imminent Brexit . Around 1200 employees were released and another 50 retained to run the business.
Wrightbus was taken over by Bamford Bus Company (BBC) in October 2019 and is now working on fuel cell integration and the expansion of the H2 infrastructure under the direction of Jo Bamford (son of the CEO of JC Bamford Excavators ).
Current products
Single deck buses
- StreetLite : 8.8–10.8 m long integral midibus with a diesel engine from Daimler or a micro-hybrid from Cummins
- StreetLite Max : 11.5 m long integral solo bus with a diesel engine from Daimler
- Eclipse 3 : 13.2 m long solo bus based on the Volvo B8RLE chassis
- StreetCar RTV : 18.7 m long semi-integral articulated bus on a modular chassis with hybrid drive from Siemens and Cummins
Double decker buses
- StreetDeck : 10.6 m long integral double-decker bus with a diesel engine from Daimler
- Gemini 3 : 10.6 m long double-decker based on the Volvo B5TL or B5LH chassis
- New Routemaster : 11.2 m long integral double-decker bus with hybrid drive from Siemens and Cummins
alternative drives
In addition to conventional diesel engines, Wright also offers alternative drives for all vehicles in the product range. In addition to the hybrid drives, some of which have been mentioned, this also includes battery and fuel cell bus designs .
literature
- Jack Kernohan: The Wright Way: Reminiscences of 60 Years of Coach Building in Ballymena . Colourpoint Books, 2010, ISBN 978-1-906578-50-3 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Ballymena bus manufacturer Wrightbus "seeking investors". BBC , July 23, 2019, accessed September 22, 2019. (English)
- ↑ Global Presence ( Memento of the original from April 10, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) 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. (English) on wrightbusinternational.com
- ↑ The Wright Bus for Hong Kong ( Memento of the original from April 20, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) 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. (English) on wrightbusinternational.com
- ↑ The Wright Bus for Singapore ( Memento of the original from April 20, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) 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. (English) on wrightbusinternational.com
- ↑ StreetLite (English, PDF) on wrightsgroup.com
- ↑ New: VDL Citea MLE on vdlbuscoach.com
- ↑ Benjamin Triebe: Because of Brexit: The manufacturer of the London double-decker buses from Boris Johnson is bankrupt. NZZ , September 26, 2019, accessed on the same day.
- ↑ John Campbell: Wrightbus: 1,200 job losses confirmed as firm enters administration BBC , September 25, 2019, accessed the following day. (English)
- ↑ Wrightbus continues . Retrieved May 18, 2020.
- ↑ StreetLite on www.wrightsgroup.com
- ↑ StreetLite Max at www.wrightsgroup.com
- ↑ Volvo B8RLE Specifications on volvobuses.co.uk
- ↑ 15 single-decks for East Lothian (English) on route-one.net
- ↑ StreetCar RTV at www.wrightsgroup.com
- ↑ StreetDeck at www.wrightsgroup.com
- ↑ Gemini 3 at www.wrightsgroup.com
- ↑ New Routemaster at www.wrightsgroup.com
- ↑ Advanced Driveline Technology on wrightsgroup.com
- ↑ Route One: Wrightbus fuel cell StreetDeck (PDF, English) on wrightsgroup.com
