We've almost transitied to a 100% electric bus park in Oslo now, and the difference is really night and day. I used to hate traveling on buses as I just generally found them unpleasant and loud, but the new electric ones genuinely are a lot nicer to use. I actually prefer them sometimes to the Metro in summer as the prior does not have any air condition which makes it just a tad uncomfortable when the degrees tip 27C or so
You know what's better than an electric bus? A trolly bus. Or make it a trolly bus with a "small" battery, do in-motion-charging, and only put up half the wires in a central location that covers multiple lines. 10 years later you replace a teslas worth of battery, not 10 teslas worth, which is basically buying a whole new bus.
Hello! I think this depends on the city. Here in Amsterdam, these e-buses are a perfect fit in the urban environment because of the fact that they actually don't have overhead wires. I come from the US, where there are a stupid number of overhead wires and cables literally everywhere, it's not a nice look. And I think Amsterdam wants to avoid too many overhead wires, is why the batteries are much better.
Eastern Europe and Switzerland laughed at you (except Moscow), they are successfully maintaining extensive trolley networks with a lot of battery-enabled trolleys buses, with charging while driving. Really, trolleys are the best implementation of an electric bus, because when battery ages, it could become just a regular trolley. And the efficiency is greatly improved with recuperation to grid or battery. And not losing power to battery charging (it’s not 100% efficient)
@@ayoungengineer I think that for Amsterdam it's not necessary about the look of the overhead wires but maybe the the incompatibility with the tram wires that already exist along the bus routes.
@@ayoungengineer We have started slowly rolling out these in the US. Although I wonder if trolleybus would be a much quicker way to adapt to electirification since it's already been done for decades. Hope the very few bus systems in the US that use trolleybus continue to do so
@@kartenalexos8348 I'm originally from Seattle (which one day, I will go back and make a roast video about why Seattle sucks), studied on the East Coast, and can with confidence tell you that these buses you see in my video are ~10 years ahead of the US.
In Florence, Italy, our busses got their contactless ticket machines upgraded to accept credit/debit cards years ago. And then the new regional bus company took over and sent us three decades back in time, now there is no contactless payment at all, just the old paper tickets, app or SMS. They don't even use the public WiFi and the LCD screen the new busses had added years before the takeover! Instead of raising the whole region's busses to Florence's level, they lowered Florence's busses to the rest of the region's level. It's actually infuriating, considering the takeover was also so chaotic because they suddenly stopped following the old timetables and supporting the live bus time info app. Oh well, at least they kept the hybrid busses and their new ones are all hybrid. And I saw in another city they put new e-ink timetable screens rather than paper or LED ones, which will be nice for readability.
We have had electric buses for a long time in Oslo - Norway. Now in July, all the buses are electric after delivery of 180 in April and 150 buses in June / July. All boats to the islands and the commuter boats are also fully electric. 89% of all private cars sold in 2022 and 2023 are also electric - so this will be good.
Not all the buses in Oslo are electric. There are stil MAN Lion's City buses and Scania Citywide buses in use. The MAN's may slowly be replaced, but the Scania's are fairly new and aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
@@Onwrikbaar in some sense, oil is simply too valuable to simply burn up to get from A to B and B to A every single day. These hydrocarbon chains are just way too useful in everything else, such as organic chemistry and thus all the medicinal drugs we might need
"so this will be good" Okay but still trams and trolleybuses are better than electric buses because they don't have batteries or have very small batteries. Battery production is very harmful to the environment, people that are very into EV keep forgetting that
We've had them for several years now and i must say, these buses are great! I remember taking a random trip to aalsmeer when these buses got introduced, the ride was incredibly smooth, and they even have USB ports for charging your devices!! Overall i think the manufacturer of these buses, VDL, are doing an incredible job in the european market, and i was delighted to see them in service in Osnabrück Germany on a train-layover. Great to learn i'm not the only one appreciating these simple vehicles, like they should be!
I drive a bus north of A'dam, with endpoints at Central, Sloterdijk and Noord... We still have diesels next to electric buses but are set to go full electrical this year. I must say, the buses that load from the top aren't the best choice. There's cable loaders coming up around now, which takes a lot of weight off the roof - important for how it drives, but also for lines of sight. Heavier weight on the roof means more support needed to carry it, always leading to impaired lines of sight. I do like the cam replacing the mirror. A decent bus has decent mirrors that'll do the job, but not every bus is a decent bus. But the cams will give you full vision around the bus - def a boon for safety. And since we'll be getting cable loaders, I'm pretty psyched.
RET in the Rotterdam area has had electric buses running in my town for a few years now. When I now go to another city and a traditional diesel bus passes me by it really strikes me just how LOUD they are. The difference is incredible.
Utrecht moet, vind ik, ook écht overstappen naar 100% elektrisch. Want als je op de bus staat te wachten onder centraal stinkt het zo erg naar uitlaat. En luid.. ik bedoel LUID.
I live in an area of Budapest where only trolley buses run, they are also incredibly noiseless, but also do not need a large battery to charge them as similar to trams they have their pantographs take charge continously _(new models of course have a battery to be able to navigage shorter sections, but I fail to see why pure EV busses are better then trolley buses with a small battery
We have similar digital mirrors on some of our buses here in Brisbane. They are a significant improvement over mirrors for several reasons; no need to manually adjust their position for each driver, fewer blind spots, and great clarity in wet weather. All too often the mirrors will get covered in raindrops, and cars can become invisible! Imagine a silver hatchback without their headlights on, exactly the same colour as the road and spray, further camouflaged by the drops on the mirror. With the cameras, we can see them clear as day. I remember being really impressed when we were being shown them for the first time in the depot, on a drilling day, being able to see the ripples of raindrops in puddles beside the bus on the screen. Significant improvement, and I hope to see them become more widespread on buses, trucks, and private cars as well.
Somebody I know is a school bus driver, they've told me these and other problems in the past, I think it's super interesting how my civil engineering training manifests in these problems that school bus drivers have, like the mirror problems as you've described.😊
You forgot to mention the vibration in some mirrors. There's nothing worse than having one that shakes so much, you can't tell what's approaching when you go to leave the stop. We've just got 9 new e-buses in the Redlands, but they still have the standard mirrors on them.
@@vk4vsp That’s a great point now you mention it. Not only this but over a trip the vibrations may shift the position of a lose mirror requiring constant adjustments before it can be tightened. These systems really are a great upgrade for so many reasons!
I actually had an internship at where these busses are maintained and it was very fun. Got to know alot about them and see what the best seat is. My one complaint with these busses is that I much prefer the layouts in the ebusco electric ones especially the nice raised back and front seat with windscreen view
The humming noises were implemented on early model Toyota Prius Hybrid vehicles in Japan, they used a similar system with a speaker. This was in response to an increase in low speed collisions with pedestrians as the vehicles were virtually silent in electric mode.
I'm losing my vision and while I'm still safe to cycle the thought of trying to cross a road in the future when my vision gets worse and I can hardly hear the cars ect coming scares the life out of me.
@@becca413b I have the other issue. Cyclists don’t hear my EV and I don’t want to scare them by honking my horn. So I end up waiting for them to clear the road or the road to broaden
My city of Poznań has some Solaris electric busses, and also bought some hydrogen ones recently. The comfort is much greater with ev busses than with diesels due to the engine noise and vibrations being eliminated.
We have these in Gothenburg. Main thing wrong with them is that they are too quiet and you cannot hear them coming. They are a hazard for pedestrians. Goodness knows what the lifetime environmental impact is.
About the camera mirrors the repair cost would exceed the cost to repair a conventional mirror. We already have cameras in the back of the bus that are protected by a sort of shield. And they are really inconsistent. After a while they get blurry or glitches in the camera lens. The differences is that a camera behind the buss is not essential for operating the buss but the side mirrors are. Time to repair is also important. If it’s a big bus depot that already have qualified personal to do these kinds of repairs it may be beneficial to have the cameras and conventional mirrors as a backup. Then the bus has a fallback if the camera mirrors fail. In my opinion the camera mirrors are good for the driver but can’t yet replace conventional mirrors. They should work in tandem together strengthening each other’s weaknesses.
Hi I'm from the UK and had a few points to make about your great video: 1. I own a car with camera mirrors (Honda e) and while I think that they about a wash with traditional mirrors, the ones you show are fantastic. As tech gets cheaper I wouldn't be surprised if any basic car has them in about 15 years. 2. In London at least, for at least a decade I've been able to use my debit card, iPhone or watch to tap in and out of public transport. Even my mum in her 70s with no internet uses her contactless card when visiting me. If I visit the US and it's as bad as you say, you're going to get a random English guy saying some very naughty words and waving his arms around. 3. I genuinely appreciate you saying when you're not knowledgeable enough about something to be sure. I'm a surgeon not an engineer, but one of the best lessons a boss has taught me is "The second best answer is always 'I don't know"' Keep it up, I've subscribed and if you're really lucky you won't get another extremely verbose comment from me!
Honestly I have no idea what is superior over trolley buses in Eastern Europe, other then asthetic reasons. The cables are quite ok with even old city archictecture. Why is there an emphasis on total EV instead having pantographs continously taking electricity with small backup batteries over points with no wires?
I worked at Schiphol airport and have ridden on these busses. They are excellent city busses. They are fast, comfortable and very quiet. But they are not cheap. Remember, they also require a considerable weight of rare earths, expensive minerals and metals. They also need electricity to run. That means a reliable, guaranteed supply of electricity. So not solar or wind and I don’t think Holland does hydro. Dutch greenies have stopped nuclear so these busses are powered by gas and nuclear imported from France.
Love the enthusiasm, I live (study & work) in the Netherlands for like 4 years and that's the first time I feel so enthusiastic about being here :D thanks to your passion and the way you say AmsterDAM :D love it man, amazing, keep up the good work! Subscribed!
With regards to closing the back doors early - I’d suggest it’s maybe also because the rear doors usually trigger a ‘hold-brake’ which takes a few seconds to clear once the doors are closed. So it’s quicker going to close the rear doors as soon as possible so the hold break is ready to release as soon as you’ve finished boarding.
Great comment, thank you! The correct spelling is "Hold BRAKE,", not BREAK! When we strike a pane of glass with a hammer, and the glass shatters into a million small pieces, we BREAK the glass. When we slow down a bus, we apply its BRAKES.
Hiya! I noted a few things about your video. 1. The usage of NFC Contactless payments on public transit isn’t something new. TFL have had it for many years now and even the MTA in New York offer it. 2. A purely battery powered bus is better than a diesel hybrid but environmentally not as sustainable as a trolly bus or tram. The battery will reach end of life long before the bus does and every charge means a loss of energy. This coupled with the environmental cost of producing the batteries might even make a battery bus worse than say an HVO fuel bus. 3. The humming sound from the speakers is an EU mandate for all EVs. 4. I agree that the North American buses are generally older than European but it’s not like modern busses don’t exist there. Especially the BTR buses that are starting to get quite common in North and South America.
As an European traffic engineer student, these kinds of videos stop me from wanting to travel to North America. How the hell can Americans got amazed by a regular European bus, with a stop request button, on a bus lane, etc.??? 😫
This is exactly why you absolutely should travel there. It will give you an appreciation of what you have. Most European people I know take their incredibly designed cities for granted.
@@ayoungengineer "Luckily" we have here many reservats of the American transport systems. Retail parks, hypermarkets with unnecessarily big parking lots at the perimeters of some bigger villages. They've always been ugly and uneffective, but as a kid I never thought this is exactly how a city centre looks like in the so called world of freedom where you can't even be a normal citizen with basic civil rights without having a massive SUV or pick-up. To be fair, that Dutch bus is above the average even in Europe. (However I'm writing these lines on an electric bus with proper AC, in a comfortable seat right in the agglomeration of Hungary) American landscapes are beautiful through pictures, I'll definitely go there some day. :)
As an American, I have no idea how he can be amazed by it since American buses have them too. He's obviously never been on an American bus. It does look like the video is created and posted to try and call Americans stupid, inferior and whatever. Usually stated by an insecure little dictator cause American freedom makes his vagina sore. RUclips is now an American hating platform for losers to post videos about how America is stupid.
This video is really nice and Electric busses like these are quite cool and electric busses are quite comfortable . This bus is made by VDL. A company originally Dutch which feels great to know that it's from my country. But there is one huge problem with electronic engines and that is the battery. The battery is so bad for the environment to produce that the advantage i less pollution is not relevant anymore. The best thing to do is what they have in the city of Arnhem more in the east part of the Netherlands. The trolleybus. It's an electric bus without a battery. Instead they use power from the cables above their route the same as the tram does so they don't have the battery that is made in an extremely climate unfriendly way. You would think it would be an issue because they can't freely choose their route especially when there is an interruption on or if the route changes. But that really is not much of an issue since the route rarely changes and maintenance to the road is also not happening to often For moments that their is a maintenance going on the busses can be fitted with a small battery to just follow a small part of the rouse without power from the line. that would be suitable for small changes in the route both temporary and permanent changes. The much smaller battery than what electric busses have now would be enough to really make a difference to the climate change
A really entertaining and informative video about something I hadn't really known about beforehand. You've earned yourself a new sub, hope your channel soon gains the attention it deserves when you publish more vids in the future :D
Electric buses are better if they receive power from an overhead line. Makes them lighter and more efficient and it makes them less dangerous in a fire. It would also reduce road wear.
I also argue that buses should be free at point of use- everyone would choose the bus if it were free and dwell times would go down as people wouldn't need to check in or out and all doors could be used for both allighting and embarking! the benefits to the economy of quick and easy mobility far outweigh the costs! Transit is a public service and need, not a business opportunity!
[] ... Electric buses are better if they receive power from an overhead line. We already have something like that. They are called "trams". Trams require a fixed infrastructure. Electric buses supplement by providing a more flexible infrastructure. [] ... Makes them [red. trolley buses] lighter and more efficient ... Perhaps. But you lose flexibility where it is needed or required. [] ... it makes them less dangerous in a fire. Fire is not a valid argument. If it were than every private automobile should receive power from an overhead line. [] ... It would also reduce road wear. Perhaps. But on the other hand electric buses are more efficient, cleaner, and overall cheaper during its life cycle.
The US is such a huge country. We need to reinstate and make public transit a sturdy institution rather than rely on planes and cars. The automobile is a burden for every American whether they realize it or not. Unfortunately car culture is so extreme that buses and trains though still existing are not able to compete for the subsidies that automobiles and planes get. So now what America has are increasing numbers of large automobiles classified as unregulated trucks which are allowed to pollute the air and roadways with carcinogenic residues of all sorts. If it were a small country this would be bad. But it’s a large country spanning the entire width of a large continent. It only seems fine until about 50% of the population gets a diagnosis. Is the medical system talking about it? No. They have enough on their plate without taking on the added duty of advocating for sane lifestyle choices. 🤷♀️ Large country, large pricetag, political pressure is almost zero to change infrastructure in light of what we did not know when we adopted wholesale car culture. So now few people have interest in rethinking and true to big oops of any kind in large countries where turning the proverbial ship around takes a long time, the reaction seems so often to double down and keep going in the wrong direction. We got rid of most train connections which were between towns everywhere and we made the remaining transit all but unuseful. It was sort of planned and while it is wonderful to have a national highway system it has been a net loss operation from the start with continuous also carcinogenic polluting maintenance.
The diesel bus in the first part of the video is gonna be replaced later this year. My transit concession will go all electric in the fall of this year. I live along the bus route of the one you got on camera, and i'm not gonna miss the vacuum cleaner like noise of the Voith transmission. The diesel motors themselves aren't bothersome to me but the transmission is loud as hell when pulling away. With regards to the camera 'mirrors', i'm sure they're much better for the driver. However, for a cyclist or pedestrian they're annoying. You cannot tell if the driver can see you anymore. Can't tell if they're looking. Can't see if i'm in their field of view. This means that i have to fully rely on the driver to keep me in sight, rather than making sure myself that i'm in view of the mirrors and making eye contact with the driver. The driver can see more, but it's now impossible to tell if they're looking.
One time when I was waiting at a bus stop with my friend, the bus rolled in so fast that my friend hadn't even noticed it and the mirror hit him square in the back of the head, pushing him to the ground. All the bus driver did was honk... after it had already happened. So yeah, I know exactly why bus mirrors could be a problem. Love the video by the way! You're super enthusiastic, and your pronunciation of "Amsterdam" is super accurate, albeit very enunciated, haha.
I learned this issue from a bus driver telling me once - ever since then, I am paranoid of even pick-up trucks and any rental trucks now. The bus drivers, I hope, are trained more than those two drivers with the big mirrors everywhere.
The only thing not up to date is the card system and ticket sales. Where I live, we only use apps or a machine on the platform. The driver only drives and is not using time selling tickets. There is no need to tap anything. Though you must be prepared for random controls.
Mirrors, HOW do you keep the camera mirrors clean when there is road spray? I did not see a means of keeping the cameras clean. The traditional mirror bus that you sneered at had a passengers side mirror in the slipstream so it stays clean, while the drivers side gets covered in spray and rendered opaque. This is a serious problem that non drivers ignore.
If the busses are on the tramway for parts of the journey, would there be an advantage in having them ride as trolley busses and pick up electricity from the wire above?
Dutch bus manufacturers Ebusco and VDL are doing good! There are other companies so competition is as strong as with traditional buses, so customers can have great quality and maintain not too high prices. (As for the video, interesting but commentary is sometimes a bit weird)
We have similar buses in the UK, Electric Double Deckers with Camera Mirrors are becoming more common here. There are not many buses with Pantograph charging however, the main ones are the Volvo 7900E's with Harrogate Bus Company. They are also testing Pantograph charging in London.
We have the 7900e 18,7m here in Stavanger, Norway. No pantograph charging here at the stops only at the depot for now. Really nice buses except there were lots of complaints in the begininng because of the unbearably loud "doors are opening/closing" alarm luckily they have disabled them now
@@ungesalsa2554 I am really interested as why this is better then the eastern European model of pantograph most of the way (as in continous charging, with gaps being run by EV) with small battery, which surely is much more efficient and avoids a large battery weight.
@@icepharmy We used to have trolleybuses here before. But it was removed in the 70's for some reason. I guess it's more flexible without the pantograph. Eventually most stops along the main routes will have pantograph charging at the stops at least
Yeh…think we have all of two here in Edinburgh….so far behind. Princess street we are told is one of the best streets in the world…in reality it is a busy, noisy, smelly linear bus station
You should visit Eindhoven as they build and experiment with different VDL busses here, since the factory and main offices are in the Eindhoven area. The bus you're talking about has already been in service since like 4 or 5 years now and there are also 2 hydrogen prototype busses. The previous generation still had normal mirrors and could drive itself (guided by magnets built into the road), but they weren't allowed to because according to the law (at the time) you needed 100% dedicated buslanes, which the city hadn't because at several points in the city you have to cross the buslane. This system was therefor never used and they didn't include it in the newer generation. One other thing that "screen" at 8:06 does (at least in Eindhoven) is changing the traffic lights priority so that the bus gets priority. Ambulances and police cars are known to also have this system built-in, it works really well and you're never waiting that long for a green light.
@@ayoungengineer In about a few weeks you will see 32 new VDL electric busses in Eindhoven. This week the 3th bus was delivered for learning the driver's to operate this bus. Thursday it's my turn to get used to this bus.
For the noise: You should try to find a first generation Citaro for comparison - after 20 years they've now lost most of their noise cancellation I guess and many start sounding like a roaring elk :)
Considering they're hybrid vehicles, it might be that they're only running on the internal combustion part of the engine. I see no reason why an electric vehicle would suddenly start making noise, considering the fact that the actual "engine" has no moving parts. Unless the moving parts of the vehicle weren't properly maintained of course.
@@Flutesrock8900 Hybrid Citaros are extremally rare. EvoBus was showing/talking about it in 2007, and the production eventually started in 2009. And even after that they remained rare. So no, Citaros are actually not always hybrid vehicles. They are mainly Diesel vehicles, with a CNG every now and then. And a whooping 37 Fuel-Cell ones that were made in 2002/2003. The amount of serial hybrids is almost not really that high either, and it's so rare that i have yet to see one before they leave active service. My city supposedly has 3 hybrid Citaros... or had 3 hybrid citaros, but i yet have to come across them.
The new Electric Buses in Amsterdam is really Amazing and Enjoyable to travel with, fully equipped with HD Camera for proper monitoring and security standard. I really enjoyed traveling with it from Amsterdam Central station to Orangestraat
One thing that would bring this to perfection is if the buses didn't have check-in points and simply used “Off-Board” Fare Collection (prepurchase ticket, or a pre-paid/subscription fare card) and only had a small ticket machine available inside the seating area (just in case if you didn't buy a ticket or you do not have a subscription) to minimize the dwell time of the bus at the stop. Yes, it does open more room for fare dodging but with the fear of hefty fines and random checks, it isn't a big problem. We use this method in Prague for all types of transport and it really maximizes the efficiency of the system and together with all-door boarding, it makes sure that the public transport vehicle stops for a minimum amount of time. Just to say, these buses are really cool, but trams are just superior. But if you have to have a bus these and mainly trolly buses are the way to go.
Nothing beats the convenience of being able to walk onto a random bus without having to buy a ticket for that specific route. There will always be plenty of people (tourists!) without a subscription, which means the bus will just sit there while multiple people are using the ticket machine on the bus. One of the best things of our trains and buses is that you can walk up to a random one with your card, and forget about the whole ticket business.
@@mfbfreak Well the millions of tourist that visit Prague every year don’t delay the transit one bit, so no issue there (no tram or city bus ever has a line to get on). You can use the ticket machine in the vehicle while in motion ( but I have seen like 2 people use it since it got installed last year) plus there are plenty of machines inside bus terminals and metro entrances) One ticket works for everything so no issue there either. The best thing about our system is that you can walk up to a random vehicle (train,bus,trolleybus,metro,tram,ferry,fenicular) and don’t even have to take out your wallet (only once on a blue moon when a ticket inspector asks you). Btw Prague public transit has been voted the 2 best in the world and is in the top 10 fastest system worldwide. So we know how to optimize every detail, including the ticket system.
And I haven't even mentioned the best part and that is the price. The yearly ticket (164 euros) translated to days comes out to around 0,45 EUR and with the student discount, it is 0,15 EUR a day. Correct me if I am wrong, but the cheapest price I found for Amsterdam is for kids around 4.5 EUR a day (4-11). Yeah, you can say that children under 4 travel for free but here it is children under 15 and people over 60. But to be honest, we have terrible bike infrastructure so the Transit is the only thing we have.
Aarhus got Solaris and Volvo electric busses, and they are charging the same way too. :-) I am really happy, they have really made the roads quieter and no smell of toxic gasolin/diesel ! Also, we have the card device on all public transport system in the country (Denmark), and even the south of Sweden. On the busses, there are a ticket dispenser, where you can buy all sorts of tickets, so the busdriver don't have to take there focus off the road.
Thank you for posting this report. As an electric train driver and an EV car driver in England I am very pro electric transport. I was on holiday in Holland in March 2023, and used the local buses in Amersfoort with no problem using my bank card. However when I got to Rotterdam to use the trams, I was told at the Tourist office that I must buy a OV Chip card as my bank card wasn't valid. This meant having to pay a deposit on an OV Chip Card which I was only using for one holiday.
The public transit companies are currently introducing the use of contactless bank cards in their systems; till recently it was only using the OV Chipcard (everywhere). The implementation just started a few months ago and not every -local- bus/tram/streetcar company is there yet. So Amersfoort already introduced it but the RET (Rotterdam Electrical Tram co.) not yet. Come back in a few months and you'll that it can be used everywhere in the country.
There is a HUGE drawback to the camera's instead of mirrors that you failed to see....especially in Amsterdam! Mirrors offer two-way vision. Not only can the driver see the cyclist, the cyclist can also see the driver thus the cyclist can confirm the driver spotted him...or not. A camera offers only one-way vision...no eye-contact, no confirmation for the cyclist that the busdriver spots you, no moving out of the situation when you are in a blind spot.
Good point. And although hititng your mirror into another vehicle is not a good idea, it's still better than hitting it with the entire bus, those mirrors are somewhat of a buffer, too. Still, what you can see on the screens is a lot better than in a mirror...
As a cyclist, you are still relying on the driver to see you regardless. This is better. But better is not be in a position of risk as a cyclists. Simple
@@TsLeng In some situations that might be the case. It very much depends on the road design. But one thing is for sure: when the bus driver sees you, it is highly unlikely he will run you over. Trust is good, confirmation is better.
@@vogel2280 maybe I did not make it clear enough. If a cyclist can actually make it out through a mirror that a bus driver has seen them, that position (beside the bus) is already risky. You'd never want to be in that position anyway. Plus, a driver careless enough to not see you through cameras won't be seeing you via mirrors anyway. Cameras makes the situation better due to wider view and more consistent image brightness etc.
@@ayoungengineer Wow thanks for responding. This is a really cool and good video in my opinion, really well-made and nice voice. You should make a video about other public transportation in the Netherlands, like the trains, metros, trams, and buses in other cities. I know the city of Eindhoven has some really cool electric buses which they bought 6 years ago, it was the largest electric bus fleet in Europe back then. Well done.
In Luxembourg, the whole public transit (bus, tram, train) is free of charge, thus eliminating the requirement to sell, buy and checking the passengers' tickets. The actual costs are covered by the income tax, since nothing is free in this world ! There are electric busses from Volvo and Mercedes Benz and they look very similar from the passengers' point of view. They also have the charging pantograph at the end of the runs, as shown in your video, but I have not noticed the presence of rear view cameras instead of mirrors (I have been told that the maintenance shop is changing at least one mirror each day!). Electric busses are indeed much less noisy and much cleaner that that their diesel counterparts, an advantage for the drivers, the passengers and the people outside. Thanks for your job, Young Engineer!
The buses are actually not new. They are based on the VDL (Dutch brand) Citea buses, which has been in production since 2007. The line has been succesful and sold to all over Europe and outside. Especially within The Netherlands they are extremele common, as it is a domestic product. They also made a second generation line (refresh). They came in various models (low-entry, low-floor, and light low-entry) and various lengths. From around 10 meters, 12 meters (standard), 15 meters double axle, to articualted (18 to 19.5 meters). They also initially released a hybrid variant. From 2013 to 2020 they released various electric bus models of virtually every variant mentioned above. These days there are even more Electric Citeas than diesel Citeas. The electric Citea has truly become the main part of the Citea line-up over the years. Of course, over the years all those elctric models got additional options and upgrades (especially to the battery) to keep up with the times. The Dutch market has been switching to e-buses very agressively the past years. That is why the Netherlands is leading in regard of e-bus adoptation in Europe, with evey new bus registered since 2020 being zero-emission. That gave VDL an early-adaptor domestic market and a good market to push zero emission buses early and gain a lot of early experience. As such, the past years the electric Citea has been extremely dominant on the Dutch bus market. From that they managed to become one of the e-bus leaders within Europe. And it gave room for another e-bus brand to grow inside the Dutch market, namely Ebusco, who has been doing well on the Dutch market as well. Interesting to see that with the switch of going to zero-emission in The Netherlands a way larger portion of the market was supplied by domestic suppliers compared to previously. Interstingly, VDL released their VDL New Generation, so the buses you see here are an older generation already. Due to their success of the electric Citea, they decided to make a completely new Citea as a clean-sheet design, with the lessons learned from all the experience they gathered. Compared to the older Citea, the New Generation would only include electric models and could thus be fully designed around an electric driveline only. Similar to what Ebusco has been doing (who also released a new model, the Ebusco 3.0, recently). The New Generation will also come in different variants and lengths. These days by far most buses being ordered are the VDL New Generation or Ebusco 3.0. For someone that likes to see very modern electric buses and domestic manufacturing again that is great news. But a bit unfortunate that there is less variety. But other bus manufacturs are starting to focus on electric buses as well, so they might become an interesting alternative for Dutch tenders.
yes, in Belgium, 'our' domestic supplier Van Hool has bet on the wrong horse, i.e. hydrogen, it seems. It's one of the reasons they are struggling, and one of the reasons why Belgium is not a frontrunner in the switch to e-buses, even with our own VDL factory (formerly Jonckheere in Roeselare). The biggest challenges here aren't the buses themselves, actually, but adapting depots and the electric grid to accomodate these big consumers of electricity. I fear we won't make our own deadline to renew everything.
I don't know how many bus drivers you've spoken to, but over here those camera systems are utterly hated. You are unable to adjust anything except the brightness of them. When they fail you normally use the entire side making the bus undrivable. Traditional mirrors are cheaper and easier to replace and do not suffer from the fading that the camera systems do. If these buses are brand new they won't have had the issues we have from about 2020 and they are not worth the investment. You've also not shown them at night, this is highly problematic. It's also a standard legal requirement to have a bus stopping indicator to the driver, most are located on the display screen or auxiliary panel.
We have so few mirror accidents from collisions it make ZERO sense to replace them with cameras. The camera systems seem to draw them closer owing to the lensing effect they have. We have had entire camera units ripped off and that's CLOSE.
Funny thing: Traveling with the OV chip card is a lot cheaper than using a debit- or credit card. I get a senior discount for free and pay a yearly fee to travel cheaper outside the rush hour. When paying with a credit card was first introduced many passengers just held their wallet in front of the reader. Often it would see the credit card first and you ended up paying way too much! Nice video.
I ride these busses daily to work... There are some downsides that I have noticed compared to the normal busses they had before. The suspension is a little bit rough on higher speeds. (you can also notice the squeaky noise they make when riding on rough roads) Another thing is that on some of the seats of these busses, the leg room is a bit limited.
OMG forget about comparisons with the US. The US is a development country, only in certain areas top. Better compare with other modern, developed countries, such as Singapore.
Nice video about EV buses. I'm also engineer but in logistics and before i was cdl driver for eleven years. VDL Citea is very good product over all. I drove for bus company that was based here in Finland region of Tampere. The three units on the fleet of ours were exptional for us because we been used to Volvo 8700, 8900, Scania L94 and L95 chassis with Lahti Scala bodywork Rest fleet had some 70 units the others. All were Diesels. Citeas needed some special or diffirent attitude from drivers because diffirent ideology behind build of vehicle. I was actually those few that preferred citeas over others. For Nordic wheather (cold, misty, snowy) VDL's survived just like the Scanias and Volvos, offcourse all had auxial Fuel powered heaters to provide the needed extra warmth. Tyres makes all diffirence in operating in winter time and we had totally diffirent for summer season than in winter season. You are having a nice ethusiasim or geniuin intrest going on. Video was nicely devided. Not too much inside industry information about subject but some 😉
As someone that grew up and still lives in the vicinity of Amsterdam this is really normal for me and I always thought this was a standard over the rest of Europe. I know that the USA and Canada aren't that good with buses but that electric buses are something entirely new is something I didn't know. These electric VDL buses have been around some time already, as I can remember I rode them in 2020. Now I have my drivers license so I don't take public transport that often but I do see them more often that 2020. I have my truck driving license and have driven trucks with camera mirrors as well and I can tell you it's amazing!!!. No more changing around your mirrors, the mirrors don't blok as much of your vision and the fear of hitting a sign or traffic light next to the road is way less. With buses you also don't run the risk of hitting a passenger at a stop with your mirror as you come to a halt. (Yes that is something to watch out for as a bus driver I have heard.)
Exactly!!! Just like I described in my video! Happy it resonated with you! To your first point, I'm from the US, and even the "standard" stuff like this is just unimaginable in the US. Dutch people are so, so spoiled with the urban planning and civil design here, it's only if you go to a terrible place (the US) that then you will see these things. Try taking a bus in Chicago, or Hartford, CT for example.
In St. Gallen in Switzerland we have Trolley buses that switch to electric everytime they leave the part of the route that doesn't have overhead wires its dope
I have been traveling with electric buses repeatedly from Venlo (Netherlands) to Nettetal-Kaldenkirchen (Germany), which is the City-Busline No. 1 from the Arriva Transport Company in Venlo. And I didn't have to pay any fares since the Venlo City Buses are included in my German Ticket subscription (which is a flat rate). The electric buses have been introduced by Arriva I think in 2016 and they use standard mirrors. Since Venlo is a small city, the buses are smaller than in Amsterdam, too, and they use the same charging system as in your video. And since they don't have that many lines, each line does have its own space with the charging device. They've charging slots at each endpoint of the line which are used after every ride. So for Line nr. 1 one charging point is at Venlo station and the other one is in Kaldenkirchen in the parking area of the public bath.
You must be young or not following automotive tech in general, because the only thing surprising for me in this video is that you actually got to ride on an almost empty bus in Amsterdam! Everything else you showed was pretty much expected, at least for most European people who get to ride buses, and that's probably why 'Amsterdamers' didn't seem to pay as much attention as you were.
I am young and am unfortunately American, where America is way behind. So, anything new I see like this is "insane" to me because I grew up in America, a place that doesn't even have sidewalks, let alone electric buses
@@ayoungengineer Well, when things are farther apart, as they usually are in North America, no one sane will build sidewalks that no one will ever use... so I guess no sidewalks is a "by design" and not "missing in design" feature
@@you2be839 I'd still say it's a missing in design thing. Used to live in a town of 3.5k inhabitants well beyond the arctic circle, and although we didn't have sidewalks on our side streets, we had sidewalks on our main streets. Even towns of just 2k inhabitants will have sidewalks there, simply because some people will walk. Before I moved there I was in a village consistsing out of just a few houses, but there was a continious sidewalk all the way to the next town as it would have been too dangerous for people or bicyclists to be on the main road with lots of traffic Now I live in a village of 10k inhabitants and those streets without a sidewalk really stick out for being unpleasent to walk in
I live in Turin, Italy, we have byd electric busses for some of the lines and they are spectacular, same canera mirrors, very quiet, there is no pantograph for charging, but that doesn't seem to be a big issue, and the drivers go a little crazy when driving, the ammount of speed those busses have is amazing. I only wish they were a bigger part of the fleat, currently there are 500 busses dedicated to operating within the city and nearby cities, and 100 of them are electric, the rest are mostly powered by natural gas, so it's 20% electric.
EV buses are heavier (causing more road damage), more expensive than all other bus alternatives, less energy efficient (charging and usage) and require at 10+ times more liters of water if they were to go up in flames (something Li-Ion batteries can do if weather conditions are "extreme") compared to conventional, electric and alternative fuel buses. The combined cost of buying EV buses and setting up the carging infrastructure makes them significantly more expensive than trolley buses, the cheapest and ideal bus transit solution. Don't get me wrong, it's great they are choosing electric over internal combustion, but if you're buying new electric buses to run (on fixed routes), might as well invest in trolley buses. They are more reliable, require little to no charging time (meaning 0 minutes turn-around time), require no charging stations (since they recharge super-capacitors on the go from overhead wires) and the replacement costs are significantly lower than any other bus type. And, since these buses always run on fixed routes, might as well invest in trolleybuses and capitalize on the lower maintenance, operation and replacement costs that the type offers. Switzerland does it, can't see why the Netherlands can't.
"EV buses are heavier (causing more road damage)" bro the Dutch have THE nicest roads in continental Europe fr. So they will be just fine because they are the best at building and maintaining roads here.
@@alouisschafer7212 My guy, it's about resource management not building quality and maintenance knowledge. Financial resources are limited, so making the right choice is vital. So why spend millions on unnecessary maintenance when you invest those millions in expanding your service?? Trolleybuses offer a cheap alternative that is also less expensive to operate and substitute than any other bus type, freeing up more resources over time for expansion and service improvement. Just because you can maintain roads very well doesn't mean you should take on the extra financial burden of *having* to maintain thousands of kilometers of now more rapidly deteriorating roads [due to heavy EV buses].
In Singapore we're also slowly rolling out electric buses but mostly from Chinese companies instead without pantograph fast-charging (except for a Volvo 7900 on trial) e.g. Yutong E12 DD, BYD K9 (with Malaysian coachbuilder Gemilang bodywork), Ankai, Zhong Tong. Our 20x Linkker LM312 are an exception though. Don't think we've legalized using cameras to replace side mirrors yet but another advantage of doing so is that when a bus is crowded & thus you have passengers standing all the way up to the entrance doorway, the driver doesn't have to tell passengers standing in the doorway to lean a bit backwards to not block his/her sight-line of the far-side side mirror. Our buses currently have separate computers for fares & timetabling as they were updated at different times, but our gov't has now called for a tender to merge the computers together
People not caring and just getting on with things is the ultimate goal for these kind of things. They just seamlessly blend in to the every day. Changes that disrupt this flow are the reasons we're so hesitant to change things (as a society). Which is why things are often as messed up as they are, because we're used to it.
a big problem with battery electric buses is how much power is lost to the pressurized air system, a problem diesel and trolleybuses don't have. the pressurized air system for the uninitiated is used in the suspension (specifically to lower and raise the bus for accesibility), for braking, door actuation and for diesel buses is also what is used to shift gears, which buses and lorries need a powerfull mechanism because of their straight cut dog mesh gearboxes.
In Norway, Oslo, we despise our VDL electric buses. They are so unfriendly towards passengers, with limited legroom, abysmal seat quality, and poor indoor lighting design. Hence, the excitement was immense when we received the Solaris Urbino Electric 18.75 as a replacement earlier this April. I hope you can come to Oslo and see them for yourself - they have everything that VDL lacks. Great lighting, ample legroom, and beautiful design! The buses of the future.
those are also much more expensive, VDL price/quality is much better. also foreign countrys can buy them in bulk. Our Ebusco Electric busses are much nicer, with good lighting, and a very nice aliminiumlook design in the interior, but more expensive also.
@@lexburen5932 VDL is simply garbage compared to MAN, Scania, and Solaris. I won't speak for Ebusco, but I am extremely skeptical that Ebusco 3.0 will come to Oslo. In Norway, we haven't been lucky with Dutch "quality," unfortunately.
Bedankt man, dat was een interessante video 👍🏻 with a lot of information I didn’t know since I don’t travel by bus that frequently in Amsterdam 😂 you study in Amsterdam? Great video!
Would love to see more of these VDL buses in the city where I lived, instead of this lonely VDL DB300. Also, our city’s first bus with cameras instead of sideview mirrors had entered service recently.
@@ayoungengineer Actually, I’m living on the other side of the world, in Asia. We have a VDL double decker bus operating in our city. And we now have our first double decker bus, with cameras replacing the sideview mirrors, operating in our city.
You mentioned you like to just drive around on busses so i have a recommendation. Just randomly did an amazing bus journey on a route ive never been on last week. Its the 121 line from Wormerveer to Purmerend. Its a very bumpy ride in this minivan-like bus. About half way you start to understand why the bus is so small. It goes right through old "polders" over the tiny dikes that were once used to pump the land dry. These areas feature towns with weird layouts, very stretched out along these dikes, like the town Wormer and its main street, the Dorpsstraat. Its very fun to have such a rural and adventurous busride so close to Amsterdam. Some of the bus stops are even called by individual adresses like Dorpsstraat 137. Never seen that before in The Netherlands. Pretty cool if you live in a house which has its own private busstop, well not private, but you know what I mean.
You know, they're all exciting at all but I personally do not buy the camera instead of mirror wow factor. The more things that get replaced with electronic substitutes - the greater the electricity consumption AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, the higher the risk of that thing not working / misbehaving. Anything that needs electricity to work is prone to... well, not working if something gets messed up (wiring issue, software issue). A regular mirror can never say "No". I agree that wide range visibility is amazing (obviously) to have but how about regular mirrors (default mirrors) plus wide range one? Not cameras. We need to stop being such suckers for extra screens and extra imagery displayed on screens. Like... what's next on that line? Busses not having front windows (windshields) but regular walls with cameras so that the driver will look at a screen of what the cameras record instead? Technology is great but just because you can digitalize almost everything, doesn't mean you should. Some digitalizations are beyond welcome and bring a quantum leap in the performance of things, others are just an unnecessary flex that actually carries greater risk than benefit.
In Eindhoven they're now test driving the next-generation version of these buses. (New Generation Citea). Maybe if you pull some strings you can give us a preview. ;)
I have the same vibe as you whenever brand new busses came to my city in mexico, I was so excited everytime I spotted one. Even though they dont stack up at all compared to these, im still proud that my city is investing into better busses to what we have currently.
as for looking better: many electric buses don't have a different appearance than the diesel powered version of the same model range. Also mirror cameras became a thing also on buses from other brands, but also on trucks and cars
@@ayoungengineer the mirror cams on Audis look cool as well, really fits their design. It's also a thing on some new fire apparatus as well. Slowly getting more and more popular.
Great video, nice and informative! 1:08 I don’t usually do that with buses, but with trains, I still admire buses, but I don’t take tons of picture, but almost every time I take the train here in switzerland I take a picture, and find some new details which I previously overlooked.
I feel sad about getting jealous at the payment options in Dutch buses. German bus companies (that I've seen) never implemented card payment at all. We always had either cash or a chip card for a monthly subscription. Lately, there are phone apps with digital tickets or distance based fares too, but still no card at all.
@@therealdutchidiot Why would it matter if it is statewide or nationwide in such a large country with massive states. What is the issue with the slight inconvenience that is having a drawer of cards for every city you travel to.
@@therealdutchidiot The point of having a card is not having one time use tickets. If we didn't have cards you'd have to buy a paper ticket for a trip, day, week, or month, and if you didn't use it enough you would lose the invested money. With a card, once you put money on it, it doesn't expire.
Those buses are great but lets consider that in China there are cities which have not merely a few electric buses but an entirely electric bus network already and those are places multiple times as large as Amsterdam. That doesn't make those buses in Amsterdam worse, just tells us that we better get things going and fast in Europe. E-buses are absolutely great and I can't wait for Vienna to finally getting proper e-buses rather than the few toy e-buses in the centre.
Man, I am from the US, if you say Europe has to get things going, you better go see the disaster going right now in the US 😂 China has crazy civil engineering I heard, maybe I'll go one day
in my city of hamburg they plan on electrifying all busses until 2030 (and hamburg heavily relies on their bus network so that are like 1.5K+ busses to electrify) they only order electric busses since 2020 as the senate decided. hamburg doesn't have much to show in terms of public transit but at least there they aren't all to bad and in my opinion electric busses aren't just an enviromental improvment, they are also just more compfortable to ride on in general (and quiet which is nice). everyone despises having to take a long bus ride, but with these it actually isn't all to bad
Also die fahren auch in Münster. Ich arbeite dort. Dort fährt z.B. die Linie 6 und Linie 8 in 20 Minuten Takt (beide fast selbe Linien, also 10 Minuten Takt) und dort fahren die VDL Busse und die Mercedes ECitaro. Super Busse 😊
I was walking in busy market place in Navi Mumbai, India. I dint know there was a big electric bus 5feet behind me, and I got to know when it gently honked. I freaked out like one would seeing something giant following you stealthily.
Some country in world has Busway 🚍 as side lane like Tramway 🚋 Electric Bus and Trolleybus 🚎 on System and than you get BRT Bus and LRT Light Rail 🚈 Transit/Tram in middle lane of road.
Some of me thinks the green line being stopped at corners is not a design flaw but an intentional feature. Buses have a large swing when they turn, so it helps the driver see where the came from and check that any cars ahead of the green line don't come to close or move around them during these maneuvers.
Well...most of these features were not rivolutionary at all but I understand that from an American point of view it may appear to be so. In my small town of Reggio Emilia we've been using contactless payment (with debit card) for quite some years now. We have the "Man Lion's City CNG efficient hybrid" buses (both 12 meter and articulated 18 meter) and these have everything mentioned here, except the humming thing and the overhead charging, none of which are actually needed since these buses are hybrid (so they get charged directly at the depot and are never too quiet for a humming). Overall I think Man Lion City buses are a fantastic option.
We've almost transitied to a 100% electric bus park in Oslo now, and the difference is really night and day. I used to hate traveling on buses as I just generally found them unpleasant and loud, but the new electric ones genuinely are a lot nicer to use. I actually prefer them sometimes to the Metro in summer as the prior does not have any air condition which makes it just a tad uncomfortable when the degrees tip 27C or so
Have you been to Amsterdam? I went to Oslo once, in 2018, so beautiful. Norway is a lovely country
True, electric driving is more comfy than diesel, especially when the years start counting.
Diesel sound more interesting
You know what's better than an electric bus? A trolly bus. Or make it a trolly bus with a "small" battery, do in-motion-charging, and only put up half the wires in a central location that covers multiple lines. 10 years later you replace a teslas worth of battery, not 10 teslas worth, which is basically buying a whole new bus.
Hello! I think this depends on the city. Here in Amsterdam, these e-buses are a perfect fit in the urban environment because of the fact that they actually don't have overhead wires. I come from the US, where there are a stupid number of overhead wires and cables literally everywhere, it's not a nice look. And I think Amsterdam wants to avoid too many overhead wires, is why the batteries are much better.
Just removed part of our trolley bus network from Arnhem. The overhead wires need a lot of maintenance.
Depends if your city is ugly anyway. The overhead wires are very ugly.
Eastern Europe and Switzerland laughed at you (except Moscow), they are successfully maintaining extensive trolley networks with a lot of battery-enabled trolleys buses, with charging while driving. Really, trolleys are the best implementation of an electric bus, because when battery ages, it could become just a regular trolley. And the efficiency is greatly improved with recuperation to grid or battery. And not losing power to battery charging (it’s not 100% efficient)
@@ayoungengineer I think that for Amsterdam it's not necessary about the look of the overhead wires but maybe the the incompatibility with the tram wires that already exist along the bus routes.
Informational, passionate, and showing us a part of the world the US wishes they had. What an amazing video man. Best one yet! Keep it up!
Love to hear it, thank you! 😎 Perhaps the US needs the expertise of A Young Engineer to help them! 👀
@@ayoungengineer We have started slowly rolling out these in the US. Although I wonder if trolleybus would be a much quicker way to adapt to electirification since it's already been done for decades. Hope the very few bus systems in the US that use trolleybus continue to do so
@@kartenalexos8348 I'm originally from Seattle (which one day, I will go back and make a roast video about why Seattle sucks), studied on the East Coast, and can with confidence tell you that these buses you see in my video are ~10 years ahead of the US.
@@ayoungengineer I agree. Buses are shit in the US. I was just talking about the electrification part
@@ayoungengineer tram is better than electric bus just because batteries are dirtier than coal.
In Florence, Italy, our busses got their contactless ticket machines upgraded to accept credit/debit cards years ago.
And then the new regional bus company took over and sent us three decades back in time, now there is no contactless payment at all, just the old paper tickets, app or SMS. They don't even use the public WiFi and the LCD screen the new busses had added years before the takeover!
Instead of raising the whole region's busses to Florence's level, they lowered Florence's busses to the rest of the region's level.
It's actually infuriating, considering the takeover was also so chaotic because they suddenly stopped following the old timetables and supporting the live bus time info app.
Oh well, at least they kept the hybrid busses and their new ones are all hybrid. And I saw in another city they put new e-ink timetable screens rather than paper or LED ones, which will be nice for readability.
We have had electric buses for a long time in Oslo - Norway. Now in July, all the buses are electric after delivery of 180 in April and 150 buses in June / July. All boats to the islands and the commuter boats are also fully electric. 89% of all private cars sold in 2022 and 2023 are also electric - so this will be good.
Not all the buses in Oslo are electric. There are stil MAN Lion's City buses and Scania Citywide buses in use. The MAN's may slowly be replaced, but the Scania's are fairly new and aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
@@OneKnifeYeHand 129 new buses in june/july will help -I think.
I love how in Norway, which has vast oil reserves, barely any ICE cars are sold anymore 🙂
@@Onwrikbaar in some sense, oil is simply too valuable to simply burn up to get from A to B and B to A every single day. These hydrocarbon chains are just way too useful in everything else, such as organic chemistry and thus all the medicinal drugs we might need
"so this will be good" Okay but still trams and trolleybuses are better than electric buses because they don't have batteries or have very small batteries. Battery production is very harmful to the environment, people that are very into EV keep forgetting that
We've had them for several years now and i must say, these buses are great! I remember taking a random trip to aalsmeer when these buses got introduced, the ride was incredibly smooth, and they even have USB ports for charging your devices!! Overall i think the manufacturer of these buses, VDL, are doing an incredible job in the european market, and i was delighted to see them in service in Osnabrück Germany on a train-layover. Great to learn i'm not the only one appreciating these simple vehicles, like they should be!
They have these in Germany too? Osnabrück you say?
I drive a bus north of A'dam, with endpoints at Central, Sloterdijk and Noord... We still have diesels next to electric buses but are set to go full electrical this year. I must say, the buses that load from the top aren't the best choice. There's cable loaders coming up around now, which takes a lot of weight off the roof - important for how it drives, but also for lines of sight. Heavier weight on the roof means more support needed to carry it, always leading to impaired lines of sight.
I do like the cam replacing the mirror. A decent bus has decent mirrors that'll do the job, but not every bus is a decent bus. But the cams will give you full vision around the bus - def a boon for safety. And since we'll be getting cable loaders, I'm pretty psyched.
RET in the Rotterdam area has had electric buses running in my town for a few years now. When I now go to another city and a traditional diesel bus passes me by it really strikes me just how LOUD they are. The difference is incredible.
Klopt!
Utrecht moet, vind ik, ook écht overstappen naar 100% elektrisch. Want als je op de bus staat te wachten onder centraal stinkt het zo erg naar uitlaat. En luid.. ik bedoel LUID.
I live in an area of Budapest where only trolley buses run, they are also incredibly noiseless, but also do not need a large battery to charge them as similar to trams they have their pantographs take charge continously _(new models of course have a battery to be able to navigage shorter sections, but I fail to see why pure EV busses are better then trolley buses with a small battery
@@icepharmyprobably something like "old technology boring" or "but the wires are ugly!!!"
Here in America we don't even have the gasoline ones, let alone electric. A 50 year bus would be an improvement on the "no bus". Sad I know
We have similar digital mirrors on some of our buses here in Brisbane. They are a significant improvement over mirrors for several reasons; no need to manually adjust their position for each driver, fewer blind spots, and great clarity in wet weather. All too often the mirrors will get covered in raindrops, and cars can become invisible! Imagine a silver hatchback without their headlights on, exactly the same colour as the road and spray, further camouflaged by the drops on the mirror. With the cameras, we can see them clear as day. I remember being really impressed when we were being shown them for the first time in the depot, on a drilling day, being able to see the ripples of raindrops in puddles beside the bus on the screen. Significant improvement, and I hope to see them become more widespread on buses, trucks, and private cars as well.
Somebody I know is a school bus driver, they've told me these and other problems in the past, I think it's super interesting how my civil engineering training manifests in these problems that school bus drivers have, like the mirror problems as you've described.😊
You forgot to mention the vibration in some mirrors. There's nothing worse than having one that shakes so much, you can't tell what's approaching when you go to leave the stop. We've just got 9 new e-buses in the Redlands, but they still have the standard mirrors on them.
@@vk4vsp That’s a great point now you mention it. Not only this but over a trip the vibrations may shift the position of a lose mirror requiring constant adjustments before it can be tightened. These systems really are a great upgrade for so many reasons!
@@vk4vsp Redlands? NorCal?
@@ayoungengineer Queensland, Australia. It's right next to Brisbane, where Thomas is. We do regular runs into Brisbane at peak times.
I actually had an internship at where these busses are maintained and it was very fun. Got to know alot about them and see what the best seat is. My one complaint with these busses is that I much prefer the layouts in the ebusco electric ones especially the nice raised back and front seat with windscreen view
By Jan van Galenstraat? DM me on Insta if you can! I'm @ayoungengineerguy
The humming noises were implemented on early model Toyota Prius Hybrid vehicles in Japan, they used a similar system with a speaker. This was in response to an increase in low speed collisions with pedestrians as the vehicles were virtually silent in electric mode.
My family used to have a Prius, jeez, almost 10 years ago now. Those things are crazy quiet
The humming noise is standard in almost all electric cars these days
It is a mandatory eu requirement since 2020
I'm losing my vision and while I'm still safe to cycle the thought of trying to cross a road in the future when my vision gets worse and I can hardly hear the cars ect coming scares the life out of me.
@@becca413b I have the other issue. Cyclists don’t hear my EV and I don’t want to scare them by honking my horn. So I end up waiting for them to clear the road or the road to broaden
Enjoyable and interesting! And a honorable mention for your repeated pronunciation of *AMSTERDAM* like it’s supposed to be written in all capitals 😂
OMSTERDOM
@@ayoungengineer Why did you do that btw?
My city of Poznań has some Solaris electric busses, and also bought some hydrogen ones recently. The comfort is much greater with ev busses than with diesels due to the engine noise and vibrations being eliminated.
We have these in Gothenburg. Main thing wrong with them is that they are too quiet and you cannot hear them coming. They are a hazard for pedestrians.
Goodness knows what the lifetime environmental impact is.
Fair
About the camera mirrors the repair cost would exceed the cost to repair a conventional mirror. We already have cameras in the back of the bus that are protected by a sort of shield. And they are really inconsistent. After a while they get blurry or glitches in the camera lens. The differences is that a camera behind the buss is not essential for operating the buss but the side mirrors are. Time to repair is also important. If it’s a big bus depot that already have qualified personal to do these kinds of repairs it may be beneficial to have the cameras and conventional mirrors as a backup. Then the bus has a fallback if the camera mirrors fail. In my opinion the camera mirrors are good for the driver but can’t yet replace conventional mirrors. They should work in tandem together strengthening each other’s weaknesses.
Hi I'm from the UK and had a few points to make about your great video:
1. I own a car with camera mirrors (Honda e) and while I think that they about a wash with traditional mirrors, the ones you show are fantastic. As tech gets cheaper I wouldn't be surprised if any basic car has them in about 15 years.
2. In London at least, for at least a decade I've been able to use my debit card, iPhone or watch to tap in and out of public transport. Even my mum in her 70s with no internet uses her contactless card when visiting me. If I visit the US and it's as bad as you say, you're going to get a random English guy saying some very naughty words and waving his arms around.
3. I genuinely appreciate you saying when you're not knowledgeable enough about something to be sure. I'm a surgeon not an engineer, but one of the best lessons a boss has taught me is "The second best answer is always 'I don't know"'
Keep it up, I've subscribed and if you're really lucky you won't get another extremely verbose comment from me!
All new London buses, probably all new model buses in the uk have the camera mirrors
Honestly I have no idea what is superior over trolley buses in Eastern Europe, other then asthetic reasons. The cables are quite ok with even old city archictecture. Why is there an emphasis on total EV instead having pantographs continously taking electricity with small backup batteries over points with no wires?
Upfront cost. Simple as that.
I worked at Schiphol airport and have ridden on these busses. They are excellent city busses. They are fast, comfortable and very quiet. But they are not cheap. Remember, they also require a considerable weight of rare earths, expensive minerals and metals. They also need electricity to run. That means a reliable, guaranteed supply of electricity. So not solar or wind and I don’t think Holland does hydro. Dutch greenies have stopped nuclear so these busses are powered by gas and nuclear imported from France.
that's a strong statement
That’s not how the grid works, lol. If there’s renewable energy in the grid (e.g. solar and wind) it will be used to charge those buses.
Love the enthusiasm, I live (study & work) in the Netherlands for like 4 years and that's the first time I feel so enthusiastic about being here :D thanks to your passion and the way you say AmsterDAM :D love it man, amazing, keep up the good work! Subscribed!
Thank you!
With regards to closing the back doors early - I’d suggest it’s maybe also because the rear doors usually trigger a ‘hold-brake’ which takes a few seconds to clear once the doors are closed. So it’s quicker going to close the rear doors as soon as possible so the hold break is ready to release as soon as you’ve finished boarding.
Great comment, thank you! The correct spelling is "Hold BRAKE,", not BREAK! When we strike a pane of glass with a hammer, and the glass shatters into a million small pieces, we BREAK the glass. When we slow down a bus, we apply its BRAKES.
Hiya!
I noted a few things about your video.
1. The usage of NFC Contactless payments on public transit isn’t something new. TFL have had it for many years now and even the MTA in New York offer it.
2. A purely battery powered bus is better than a diesel hybrid but environmentally not as sustainable as a trolly bus or tram. The battery will reach end of life long before the bus does and every charge means a loss of energy. This coupled with the environmental cost of producing the batteries might even make a battery bus worse than say an HVO fuel bus.
3. The humming sound from the speakers is an EU mandate for all EVs.
4. I agree that the North American buses are generally older than European but it’s not like modern busses don’t exist there. Especially the BTR buses that are starting to get quite common in North and South America.
I'm always a fan of getting the windshield clear before heading out into traffic...
Same, that time it was foggy while driving already though
And I should say I hope to see more of your work, nice job.
As an European traffic engineer student, these kinds of videos stop me from wanting to travel to North America. How the hell can Americans got amazed by a regular European bus, with a stop request button, on a bus lane, etc.??? 😫
This is exactly why you absolutely should travel there. It will give you an appreciation of what you have. Most European people I know take their incredibly designed cities for granted.
@@ayoungengineer "Luckily" we have here many reservats of the American transport systems. Retail parks, hypermarkets with unnecessarily big parking lots at the perimeters of some bigger villages. They've always been ugly and uneffective, but as a kid I never thought this is exactly how a city centre looks like in the so called world of freedom where you can't even be a normal citizen with basic civil rights without having a massive SUV or pick-up.
To be fair, that Dutch bus is above the average even in Europe. (However I'm writing these lines on an electric bus with proper AC, in a comfortable seat right in the agglomeration of Hungary)
American landscapes are beautiful through pictures, I'll definitely go there some day. :)
As an American, I have no idea how he can be amazed by it since American buses have them too. He's obviously never been on an American bus. It does look like the video is created and posted to try and call Americans stupid, inferior and whatever. Usually stated by an insecure little dictator cause American freedom makes his vagina sore. RUclips is now an American hating platform for losers to post videos about how America is stupid.
This video is really nice and Electric busses like these are quite cool and electric busses are quite comfortable . This bus is made by VDL. A company originally Dutch which feels great to know that it's from my country. But there is one huge problem with electronic engines and that is the battery. The battery is so bad for the environment to produce that the advantage i less pollution is not relevant anymore. The best thing to do is what they have in the city of Arnhem more in the east part of the Netherlands. The trolleybus. It's an electric bus without a battery. Instead they use power from the cables above their route the same as the tram does so they don't have the battery that is made in an extremely climate unfriendly way. You would think it would be an issue because they can't freely choose their route especially when there is an interruption on or if the route changes. But that really is not much of an issue since the route rarely changes and maintenance to the road is also not happening to often For moments that their is a maintenance going on the busses can be fitted with a small battery to just follow a small part of the rouse without power from the line. that would be suitable for small changes in the route both temporary and permanent changes. The much smaller battery than what electric busses have now would be enough to really make a difference to the climate change
in every aspect, they are EXACTLY the same as the ones in Mexico City
18:35 Here I was waiting for the windshield to clear up...
there is no practical reason for e-buses, trolleybuses outshine them in every way except they need more infrastructure
A really entertaining and informative video about something I hadn't really known about beforehand.
You've earned yourself a new sub, hope your channel soon gains the attention it deserves when you publish more vids in the future :D
Thanks! 😎
Electric buses are better if they receive power from an overhead line. Makes them lighter and more efficient and it makes them less dangerous in a fire. It would also reduce road wear.
I also argue that buses should be free at point of use- everyone would choose the bus if it were free and dwell times would go down as people wouldn't need to check in or out and all doors could be used for both allighting and embarking! the benefits to the economy of quick and easy mobility far outweigh the costs! Transit is a public service and need, not a business opportunity!
Actually you bring up a great point about road wear, it's very noticeable in Amsterdam 👀
[] ... Electric buses are better if they receive power from an overhead line.
We already have something like that. They are called "trams".
Trams require a fixed infrastructure. Electric buses supplement by providing a more flexible infrastructure.
[] ... Makes them [red. trolley buses] lighter and more efficient ...
Perhaps. But you lose flexibility where it is needed or required.
[] ... it makes them less dangerous in a fire.
Fire is not a valid argument. If it were than every private automobile should receive power from an overhead line.
[] ... It would also reduce road wear.
Perhaps. But on the other hand electric buses are more efficient, cleaner, and overall cheaper during its life cycle.
The US is such a huge country. We need to reinstate and make public transit a sturdy institution rather than rely on planes and cars. The automobile is a burden for every American whether they realize it or not. Unfortunately car culture is so extreme that buses and trains though still existing are not able to compete for the subsidies that automobiles and planes get. So now what America has are increasing numbers of large automobiles classified as unregulated trucks which are allowed to pollute the air and roadways with carcinogenic residues of all sorts. If it were a small country this would be bad. But it’s a large country spanning the entire width of a large continent. It only seems fine until about 50% of the population gets a diagnosis. Is the medical system talking about it? No. They have enough on their plate without taking on the added duty of advocating for sane lifestyle choices. 🤷♀️
Large country, large pricetag, political pressure is almost zero to change infrastructure in light of what we did not know when we adopted wholesale car culture. So now few people have interest in rethinking and true to big oops of any kind in large countries where turning the proverbial ship around takes a long time, the reaction seems so often to double down and keep going in the wrong direction. We got rid of most train connections which were between towns everywhere and we made the remaining transit all but unuseful. It was sort of planned and while it is wonderful to have a national highway system it has been a net loss operation from the start with continuous also carcinogenic polluting maintenance.
The diesel bus in the first part of the video is gonna be replaced later this year. My transit concession will go all electric in the fall of this year.
I live along the bus route of the one you got on camera, and i'm not gonna miss the vacuum cleaner like noise of the Voith transmission. The diesel motors themselves aren't bothersome to me but the transmission is loud as hell when pulling away.
With regards to the camera 'mirrors', i'm sure they're much better for the driver. However, for a cyclist or pedestrian they're annoying. You cannot tell if the driver can see you anymore. Can't tell if they're looking. Can't see if i'm in their field of view.
This means that i have to fully rely on the driver to keep me in sight, rather than making sure myself that i'm in view of the mirrors and making eye contact with the driver.
The driver can see more, but it's now impossible to tell if they're looking.
One time when I was waiting at a bus stop with my friend, the bus rolled in so fast that my friend hadn't even noticed it and the mirror hit him square in the back of the head, pushing him to the ground. All the bus driver did was honk... after it had already happened. So yeah, I know exactly why bus mirrors could be a problem.
Love the video by the way! You're super enthusiastic, and your pronunciation of "Amsterdam" is super accurate, albeit very enunciated, haha.
Sorry to hear about your friend! The bus drivers absolutely whip these buses, no mercy 😶 Thank you haha
I learned this issue from a bus driver telling me once - ever since then, I am paranoid of even pick-up trucks and any rental trucks now. The bus drivers, I hope, are trained more than those two drivers with the big mirrors everywhere.
The only thing not up to date is the card system and ticket sales. Where I live, we only use apps or a machine on the platform. The driver only drives and is not using time selling tickets. There is no need to tap anything. Though you must be prepared for random controls.
Mirrors, HOW do you keep the camera mirrors clean when there is road spray? I did not see a means of keeping the cameras clean.
The traditional mirror bus that you sneered at had a passengers side mirror in the slipstream so it stays clean, while the drivers side gets covered in spray and rendered opaque.
This is a serious problem that non drivers ignore.
Great Video! This makes me feel great pleasure seeing how Amsterdam is developing into a transport orientated city.
If the busses are on the tramway for parts of the journey, would there be an advantage in having them ride as trolley busses and pick up electricity from the wire above?
Dutch bus manufacturers Ebusco and VDL are doing good! There are other companies so competition is as strong as with traditional buses, so customers can have great quality and maintain not too high prices. (As for the video, interesting but commentary is sometimes a bit weird)
We have similar buses in the UK, Electric Double Deckers with Camera Mirrors are becoming more common here. There are not many buses with Pantograph charging however, the main ones are the Volvo 7900E's with Harrogate Bus Company. They are also testing Pantograph charging in London.
Tfl will introduce pantograph buses on some routes . Eventually the whole fleet will be electric. Mix of panto and non panto e-busses
We have the 7900e 18,7m here in Stavanger, Norway. No pantograph charging here at the stops only at the depot for now. Really nice buses except there were lots of complaints in the begininng because of the unbearably loud "doors are opening/closing" alarm luckily they have disabled them now
@@ungesalsa2554 I am really interested as why this is better then the eastern European model of pantograph most of the way (as in continous charging, with gaps being run by EV) with small battery, which surely is much more efficient and avoids a large battery weight.
@@icepharmy We used to have trolleybuses here before. But it was removed in the 70's for some reason. I guess it's more flexible without the pantograph.
Eventually most stops along the main routes will have pantograph charging at the stops at least
Yeh…think we have all of two here in Edinburgh….so far behind.
Princess street we are told is one of the best streets in the world…in reality it is a busy, noisy, smelly linear bus station
You should visit Eindhoven as they build and experiment with different VDL busses here, since the factory and main offices are in the Eindhoven area. The bus you're talking about has already been in service since like 4 or 5 years now and there are also 2 hydrogen prototype busses. The previous generation still had normal mirrors and could drive itself (guided by magnets built into the road), but they weren't allowed to because according to the law (at the time) you needed 100% dedicated buslanes, which the city hadn't because at several points in the city you have to cross the buslane. This system was therefor never used and they didn't include it in the newer generation. One other thing that "screen" at 8:06 does (at least in Eindhoven) is changing the traffic lights priority so that the bus gets priority. Ambulances and police cars are known to also have this system built-in, it works really well and you're never waiting that long for a green light.
Love comments like this, I went to Eindhoven! For DDW, was an interesting place
@@ayoungengineer In about a few weeks you will see 32 new VDL electric busses in Eindhoven. This week the 3th bus was delivered for learning the driver's to operate this bus. Thursday it's my turn to get used to this bus.
For the noise: You should try to find a first generation Citaro for comparison - after 20 years they've now lost most of their noise cancellation I guess and many start sounding like a roaring elk :)
Considering they're hybrid vehicles, it might be that they're only running on the internal combustion part of the engine. I see no reason why an electric vehicle would suddenly start making noise, considering the fact that the actual "engine" has no moving parts. Unless the moving parts of the vehicle weren't properly maintained of course.
@@Flutesrock8900 Hybrid Citaros are extremally rare. EvoBus was showing/talking about it in 2007, and the production eventually started in 2009. And even after that they remained rare.
So no, Citaros are actually not always hybrid vehicles. They are mainly Diesel vehicles, with a CNG every now and then. And a whooping 37 Fuel-Cell ones that were made in 2002/2003. The amount of serial hybrids is almost not really that high either, and it's so rare that i have yet to see one before they leave active service. My city supposedly has 3 hybrid Citaros... or had 3 hybrid citaros, but i yet have to come across them.
The new Electric Buses in Amsterdam is really Amazing and Enjoyable to travel with, fully equipped with HD Camera for proper monitoring and security standard. I really enjoyed traveling with it from Amsterdam Central station to Orangestraat
You made me smile. There's nothing that's more engaging than someone talking about a geeky passion. Everyone has one.
One thing that would bring this to perfection is if the buses didn't have check-in points and simply used “Off-Board” Fare Collection (prepurchase ticket, or a pre-paid/subscription fare card) and only had a small ticket machine available inside the seating area (just in case if you didn't buy a ticket or you do not have a subscription) to minimize the dwell time of the bus at the stop.
Yes, it does open more room for fare dodging but with the fear of hefty fines and random checks, it isn't a big problem. We use this method in Prague for all types of transport and it really maximizes the efficiency of the system and together with all-door boarding, it makes sure that the public transport vehicle stops for a minimum amount of time.
Just to say, these buses are really cool, but trams are just superior. But if you have to have a bus these and mainly trolly buses are the way to go.
Nothing beats the convenience of being able to walk onto a random bus without having to buy a ticket for that specific route. There will always be plenty of people (tourists!) without a subscription, which means the bus will just sit there while multiple people are using the ticket machine on the bus. One of the best things of our trains and buses is that you can walk up to a random one with your card, and forget about the whole ticket business.
@@mfbfreak Well the millions of tourist that visit Prague every year don’t delay the transit one bit, so no issue there (no tram or city bus ever has a line to get on). You can use the ticket machine in the vehicle while in motion ( but I have seen like 2 people use it since it got installed last year) plus there are plenty of machines inside bus terminals and metro entrances) One ticket works for everything so no issue there either. The best thing about our system is that you can walk up to a random vehicle (train,bus,trolleybus,metro,tram,ferry,fenicular) and don’t even have to take out your wallet (only once on a blue moon when a ticket inspector asks you).
Btw Prague public transit has been voted the 2 best in the world and is in the top 10 fastest system worldwide. So we know how to optimize every detail, including the ticket system.
And I haven't even mentioned the best part and that is the price. The yearly ticket (164 euros) translated to days comes out to around 0,45 EUR and with the student discount, it is 0,15 EUR a day. Correct me if I am wrong, but the cheapest price I found for Amsterdam is for kids around 4.5 EUR a day (4-11). Yeah, you can say that children under 4 travel for free but here it is children under 15 and people over 60. But to be honest, we have terrible bike infrastructure so the Transit is the only thing we have.
Aarhus got Solaris and Volvo electric busses, and they are charging the same way too. :-) I am really happy, they have really made the roads quieter and no smell of toxic gasolin/diesel ! Also, we have the card device on all public transport system in the country (Denmark), and even the south of Sweden. On the busses, there are a ticket dispenser, where you can buy all sorts of tickets, so the busdriver don't have to take there focus off the road.
Thank you for posting this report. As an electric train driver and an EV car driver in England I am very pro electric transport.
I was on holiday in Holland in March 2023, and used the local buses in Amersfoort with no problem using my bank card.
However when I got to Rotterdam to use the trams, I was told at the Tourist office that I must buy a OV Chip card as my bank card wasn't valid.
This meant having to pay a deposit on an OV Chip Card which I was only using for one holiday.
The public transit companies are currently introducing the use of contactless bank cards in their systems; till recently it was only using the OV Chipcard (everywhere). The implementation just started a few months ago and not every -local- bus/tram/streetcar company is there yet. So Amersfoort already introduced it but the RET (Rotterdam Electrical Tram co.) not yet. Come back in a few months and you'll that it can be used everywhere in the country.
If you talk about Holland, you talk about the 2 provinces north and south Holland. The country as a whole is called the Netherlands
I just discovered this channel this is amazing 😂 i love it
Welcome! New content coming sooon 😎
There is a HUGE drawback to the camera's instead of mirrors that you failed to see....especially in Amsterdam! Mirrors offer two-way vision. Not only can the driver see the cyclist, the cyclist can also see the driver thus the cyclist can confirm the driver spotted him...or not. A camera offers only one-way vision...no eye-contact, no confirmation for the cyclist that the busdriver spots you, no moving out of the situation when you are in a blind spot.
Good point. And although hititng your mirror into another vehicle is not a good idea, it's still better than hitting it with the entire bus, those mirrors are somewhat of a buffer, too. Still, what you can see on the screens is a lot better than in a mirror...
As a cyclist, you are still relying on the driver to see you regardless. This is better.
But better is not be in a position of risk as a cyclists. Simple
@@TsLeng In some situations that might be the case. It very much depends on the road design.
But one thing is for sure: when the bus driver sees you, it is highly unlikely he will run you over. Trust is good, confirmation is better.
@@vogel2280 maybe I did not make it clear enough. If a cyclist can actually make it out through a mirror that a bus driver has seen them, that position (beside the bus) is already risky.
You'd never want to be in that position anyway. Plus, a driver careless enough to not see you through cameras won't be seeing you via mirrors anyway.
Cameras makes the situation better due to wider view and more consistent image brightness etc.
@@TsLengThat is why people in the Netherlands invented bike-lanes...
Love the way you say "Amster-DAM" and "Amster-DAMMER"
OMSTERDOM
@@ayoungengineer Frankly that's the only annoying bit in the video. It's a great video otherwise.
@@ayoungengineer Wow thanks for responding. This is a really cool and good video in my opinion, really well-made and nice voice. You should make a video about other public transportation in the Netherlands, like the trains, metros, trams, and buses in other cities. I know the city of Eindhoven has some really cool electric buses which they bought 6 years ago, it was the largest electric bus fleet in Europe back then. Well done.
In Luxembourg, the whole public transit (bus, tram, train) is free of charge, thus eliminating the requirement to sell, buy and checking the passengers' tickets. The actual costs are covered by the income tax, since nothing is free in this world !
There are electric busses from Volvo and Mercedes Benz and they look very similar from the passengers' point of view. They also have the charging pantograph at the end of the runs, as shown in your video, but I have not noticed the presence of rear view cameras instead of mirrors (I have been told that the maintenance shop is changing at least one mirror each day!). Electric busses are indeed much less noisy and much cleaner that that their diesel counterparts, an advantage for the drivers, the passengers and the people outside. Thanks for your job, Young Engineer!
The buses are actually not new. They are based on the VDL (Dutch brand) Citea buses, which has been in production since 2007. The line has been succesful and sold to all over Europe and outside. Especially within The Netherlands they are extremele common, as it is a domestic product. They also made a second generation line (refresh). They came in various models (low-entry, low-floor, and light low-entry) and various lengths. From around 10 meters, 12 meters (standard), 15 meters double axle, to articualted (18 to 19.5 meters). They also initially released a hybrid variant. From 2013 to 2020 they released various electric bus models of virtually every variant mentioned above. These days there are even more Electric Citeas than diesel Citeas. The electric Citea has truly become the main part of the Citea line-up over the years. Of course, over the years all those elctric models got additional options and upgrades (especially to the battery) to keep up with the times.
The Dutch market has been switching to e-buses very agressively the past years. That is why the Netherlands is leading in regard of e-bus adoptation in Europe, with evey new bus registered since 2020 being zero-emission. That gave VDL an early-adaptor domestic market and a good market to push zero emission buses early and gain a lot of early experience. As such, the past years the electric Citea has been extremely dominant on the Dutch bus market. From that they managed to become one of the e-bus leaders within Europe. And it gave room for another e-bus brand to grow inside the Dutch market, namely Ebusco, who has been doing well on the Dutch market as well. Interesting to see that with the switch of going to zero-emission in The Netherlands a way larger portion of the market was supplied by domestic suppliers compared to previously.
Interstingly, VDL released their VDL New Generation, so the buses you see here are an older generation already. Due to their success of the electric Citea, they decided to make a completely new Citea as a clean-sheet design, with the lessons learned from all the experience they gathered. Compared to the older Citea, the New Generation would only include electric models and could thus be fully designed around an electric driveline only. Similar to what Ebusco has been doing (who also released a new model, the Ebusco 3.0, recently). The New Generation will also come in different variants and lengths. These days by far most buses being ordered are the VDL New Generation or Ebusco 3.0. For someone that likes to see very modern electric buses and domestic manufacturing again that is great news. But a bit unfortunate that there is less variety. But other bus manufacturs are starting to focus on electric buses as well, so they might become an interesting alternative for Dutch tenders.
Love this comment 💪🏼
yes, in Belgium, 'our' domestic supplier Van Hool has bet on the wrong horse, i.e. hydrogen, it seems. It's one of the reasons they are struggling, and one of the reasons why Belgium is not a frontrunner in the switch to e-buses, even with our own VDL factory (formerly Jonckheere in Roeselare).
The biggest challenges here aren't the buses themselves, actually, but adapting depots and the electric grid to accomodate these big consumers of electricity. I fear we won't make our own deadline to renew everything.
I don't know how many bus drivers you've spoken to, but over here those camera systems are utterly hated. You are unable to adjust anything except the brightness of them. When they fail you normally use the entire side making the bus undrivable. Traditional mirrors are cheaper and easier to replace and do not suffer from the fading that the camera systems do. If these buses are brand new they won't have had the issues we have from about 2020 and they are not worth the investment. You've also not shown them at night, this is highly problematic.
It's also a standard legal requirement to have a bus stopping indicator to the driver, most are located on the display screen or auxiliary panel.
We have so few mirror accidents from collisions it make ZERO sense to replace them with cameras. The camera systems seem to draw them closer owing to the lensing effect they have. We have had entire camera units ripped off and that's CLOSE.
🤦🏼♀️
Funny thing:
Traveling with the OV chip card is a lot cheaper than using a debit- or credit card.
I get a senior discount for free and pay a yearly fee to travel cheaper outside the rush hour.
When paying with a credit card was first introduced many passengers just held their wallet in front of the reader. Often it would see the credit card first and you ended up paying way too much!
Nice video.
Dank je vel. The studentenreisproduct is echt mooi... 😉
I ride these busses daily to work...
There are some downsides that I have noticed compared to the normal busses they had before. The suspension is a little bit rough on higher speeds. (you can also notice the squeaky noise they make when riding on rough roads)
Another thing is that on some of the seats of these busses, the leg room is a bit limited.
Very true
OMG forget about comparisons with the US. The US is a development country, only in certain areas top. Better compare with other modern, developed countries, such as Singapore.
Good point, I'm still in the mindset of growing up there all my life, everything still amazes me
I'm so happy that someone made such a cool and enthusiastic video about buses!
Nice video about EV buses. I'm also engineer but in logistics and before i was cdl driver for eleven years. VDL Citea is very good product over all. I drove for bus company that was based here in Finland region of Tampere. The three units on the fleet of ours were exptional for us because we been used to Volvo 8700, 8900, Scania L94 and L95 chassis with Lahti Scala bodywork Rest fleet had some 70 units the others. All were Diesels. Citeas needed some special or diffirent attitude from drivers because diffirent ideology behind build of vehicle. I was actually those few that preferred citeas over others. For Nordic wheather (cold, misty, snowy) VDL's survived just like the Scanias and Volvos, offcourse all had auxial Fuel powered heaters to provide the needed extra warmth. Tyres makes all diffirence in operating in winter time and we had totally diffirent for summer season than in winter season.
You are having a nice ethusiasim or geniuin intrest going on. Video was nicely devided. Not too much inside industry information about subject but some 😉
Thanks! 👍🏼
As someone that grew up and still lives in the vicinity of Amsterdam this is really normal for me and I always thought this was a standard over the rest of Europe. I know that the USA and Canada aren't that good with buses but that electric buses are something entirely new is something I didn't know. These electric VDL buses have been around some time already, as I can remember I rode them in 2020. Now I have my drivers license so I don't take public transport that often but I do see them more often that 2020.
I have my truck driving license and have driven trucks with camera mirrors as well and I can tell you it's amazing!!!. No more changing around your mirrors, the mirrors don't blok as much of your vision and the fear of hitting a sign or traffic light next to the road is way less. With buses you also don't run the risk of hitting a passenger at a stop with your mirror as you come to a halt. (Yes that is something to watch out for as a bus driver I have heard.)
Exactly!!! Just like I described in my video! Happy it resonated with you! To your first point, I'm from the US, and even the "standard" stuff like this is just unimaginable in the US. Dutch people are so, so spoiled with the urban planning and civil design here, it's only if you go to a terrible place (the US) that then you will see these things. Try taking a bus in Chicago, or Hartford, CT for example.
In St. Gallen in Switzerland we have Trolley buses that switch to electric everytime they leave the part of the route that doesn't have overhead wires its dope
Nice!!
I have been traveling with electric buses repeatedly from Venlo (Netherlands) to Nettetal-Kaldenkirchen (Germany), which is the City-Busline No. 1 from the Arriva Transport Company in Venlo. And I didn't have to pay any fares since the Venlo City Buses are included in my German Ticket subscription (which is a flat rate).
The electric buses have been introduced by Arriva I think in 2016 and they use standard mirrors. Since Venlo is a small city, the buses are smaller than in Amsterdam, too, and they use the same charging system as in your video. And since they don't have that many lines, each line does have its own space with the charging device. They've charging slots at each endpoint of the line which are used after every ride. So for Line nr. 1 one charging point is at Venlo station and the other one is in Kaldenkirchen in the parking area of the public bath.
"AmStErDaM"
You must be young or not following automotive tech in general, because the only thing surprising for me in this video is that you actually got to ride on an almost empty bus in Amsterdam!
Everything else you showed was pretty much expected, at least for most European people who get to ride buses, and that's probably why 'Amsterdamers' didn't seem to pay as much attention as you were.
I am young and am unfortunately American, where America is way behind. So, anything new I see like this is "insane" to me because I grew up in America, a place that doesn't even have sidewalks, let alone electric buses
@@ayoungengineer Well, when things are farther apart, as they usually are in North America, no one sane will build sidewalks that no one will ever use... so I guess no sidewalks is a "by design" and not "missing in design" feature
@@you2be839 I'd still say it's a missing in design thing. Used to live in a town of 3.5k inhabitants well beyond the arctic circle, and although we didn't have sidewalks on our side streets, we had sidewalks on our main streets. Even towns of just 2k inhabitants will have sidewalks there, simply because some people will walk. Before I moved there I was in a village consistsing out of just a few houses, but there was a continious sidewalk all the way to the next town as it would have been too dangerous for people or bicyclists to be on the main road with lots of traffic
Now I live in a village of 10k inhabitants and those streets without a sidewalk really stick out for being unpleasent to walk in
I live in Turin, Italy, we have byd electric busses for some of the lines and they are spectacular, same canera mirrors, very quiet, there is no pantograph for charging, but that doesn't seem to be a big issue, and the drivers go a little crazy when driving, the ammount of speed those busses have is amazing. I only wish they were a bigger part of the fleat, currently there are 500 busses dedicated to operating within the city and nearby cities, and 100 of them are electric, the rest are mostly powered by natural gas, so it's 20% electric.
Excellent video, keep up the great work young man!
Top thank you
Thanks for the insights and welcome to RUclips !
Thanks for watching!
EV buses are heavier (causing more road damage), more expensive than all other bus alternatives, less energy efficient (charging and usage) and require at 10+ times more liters of water if they were to go up in flames (something Li-Ion batteries can do if weather conditions are "extreme") compared to conventional, electric and alternative fuel buses. The combined cost of buying EV buses and setting up the carging infrastructure makes them significantly more expensive than trolley buses, the cheapest and ideal bus transit solution.
Don't get me wrong, it's great they are choosing electric over internal combustion, but if you're buying new electric buses to run (on fixed routes), might as well invest in trolley buses. They are more reliable, require little to no charging time (meaning 0 minutes turn-around time), require no charging stations (since they recharge super-capacitors on the go from overhead wires) and the replacement costs are significantly lower than any other bus type. And, since these buses always run on fixed routes, might as well invest in trolleybuses and capitalize on the lower maintenance, operation and replacement costs that the type offers.
Switzerland does it, can't see why the Netherlands can't.
"EV buses are heavier (causing more road damage)" bro the Dutch have THE nicest roads in continental Europe fr. So they will be just fine because they are the best at building and maintaining roads here.
@@alouisschafer7212 My guy, it's about resource management not building quality and maintenance knowledge. Financial resources are limited, so making the right choice is vital.
So why spend millions on unnecessary maintenance when you invest those millions in expanding your service??
Trolleybuses offer a cheap alternative that is also less expensive to operate and substitute than any other bus type, freeing up more resources over time for expansion and service improvement.
Just because you can maintain roads very well doesn't mean you should take on the extra financial burden of *having* to maintain thousands of kilometers of now more rapidly deteriorating roads [due to heavy EV buses].
In Singapore we're also slowly rolling out electric buses but mostly from Chinese companies instead without pantograph fast-charging (except for a Volvo 7900 on trial) e.g. Yutong E12 DD, BYD K9 (with Malaysian coachbuilder Gemilang bodywork), Ankai, Zhong Tong. Our 20x Linkker LM312 are an exception though. Don't think we've legalized using cameras to replace side mirrors yet but another advantage of doing so is that when a bus is crowded & thus you have passengers standing all the way up to the entrance doorway, the driver doesn't have to tell passengers standing in the doorway to lean a bit backwards to not block his/her sight-line of the far-side side mirror. Our buses currently have separate computers for fares & timetabling as they were updated at different times, but our gov't has now called for a tender to merge the computers together
People not caring and just getting on with things is the ultimate goal for these kind of things. They just seamlessly blend in to the every day. Changes that disrupt this flow are the reasons we're so hesitant to change things (as a society). Which is why things are often as messed up as they are, because we're used to it.
The best design is one that you'll never even notice
60 years ago we used to have trolly busses quiet buse on overhead wires but they nearly all disappeared to be replaced by diesel buses
I can't get over how you pronounce OMSTERDOM 😂😂
a big problem with battery electric buses is how much power is lost to the pressurized air system, a problem diesel and trolleybuses don't have. the pressurized air system for the uninitiated is used in the suspension (specifically to lower and raise the bus for accesibility), for braking, door actuation and for diesel buses is also what is used to shift gears, which buses and lorries need a powerfull mechanism because of their straight cut dog mesh gearboxes.
Why not a magnetic suspension?
Interesting. These details I don't know, just like I said in my video, I'm not a mechanical engineer! 😄
Variable electric motors they don’t have gear boxes
Fine video, your enthousiasme is infectious!
Super lekker, thank you!
In Norway, Oslo, we despise our VDL electric buses. They are so unfriendly towards passengers, with limited legroom, abysmal seat quality, and poor indoor lighting design. Hence, the excitement was immense when we received the Solaris Urbino Electric 18.75 as a replacement earlier this April. I hope you can come to Oslo and see them for yourself - they have everything that VDL lacks. Great lighting, ample legroom, and beautiful design! The buses of the future.
I love Oslo. Went there once, it is my favorite city in the world. I want to go back so badly ❤
those are also much more expensive, VDL price/quality is much better. also foreign countrys can buy them in bulk. Our Ebusco Electric busses are much nicer, with good lighting, and a very nice aliminiumlook design in the interior, but more expensive also.
@@lexburen5932 VDL is simply garbage compared to MAN, Scania, and Solaris. I won't speak for Ebusco, but I am extremely skeptical that Ebusco 3.0 will come to Oslo. In Norway, we haven't been lucky with Dutch "quality," unfortunately.
Hybrid busses are cool too, since they use the electric motors when on the lowest gears which are the loudest and the engine turns on at higher speeds
Bedankt man, dat was een interessante video 👍🏻 with a lot of information I didn’t know since I don’t travel by bus that frequently in Amsterdam 😂 you study in Amsterdam? Great video!
Ik studeer in Amsterdam, natuurlijk 😎 dankjewel!
@@ayoungengineer Veel succes met je studie! 👍🏻
Would love to see more of these VDL buses in the city where I lived, instead of this lonely VDL DB300.
Also, our city’s first bus with cameras instead of sideview mirrors had entered service recently.
You also are living in the NL? Just saw these in Leiden last week too
@@ayoungengineer Actually, I’m living on the other side of the world, in Asia. We have a VDL double decker bus operating in our city. And we now have our first double decker bus, with cameras replacing the sideview mirrors, operating in our city.
Would be interesting to know how many hours of charging it takes for each hour of operation
Check out some other comments on this thread, they talk about this
You mentioned you like to just drive around on busses so i have a recommendation. Just randomly did an amazing bus journey on a route ive never been on last week. Its the 121 line from Wormerveer to Purmerend. Its a very bumpy ride in this minivan-like bus. About half way you start to understand why the bus is so small. It goes right through old "polders" over the tiny dikes that were once used to pump the land dry. These areas feature towns with weird layouts, very stretched out along these dikes, like the town Wormer and its main street, the Dorpsstraat. Its very fun to have such a rural and adventurous busride so close to Amsterdam. Some of the bus stops are even called by individual adresses like Dorpsstraat 137. Never seen that before in The Netherlands. Pretty cool if you live in a house which has its own private busstop, well not private, but you know what I mean.
Say less, I'm going there next week then. Always open to recommendations
You know, they're all exciting at all but I personally do not buy the camera instead of mirror wow factor. The more things that get replaced with electronic substitutes - the greater the electricity consumption AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, the higher the risk of that thing not working / misbehaving. Anything that needs electricity to work is prone to... well, not working if something gets messed up (wiring issue, software issue). A regular mirror can never say "No". I agree that wide range visibility is amazing (obviously) to have but how about regular mirrors (default mirrors) plus wide range one? Not cameras. We need to stop being such suckers for extra screens and extra imagery displayed on screens. Like... what's next on that line? Busses not having front windows (windshields) but regular walls with cameras so that the driver will look at a screen of what the cameras record instead? Technology is great but just because you can digitalize almost everything, doesn't mean you should. Some digitalizations are beyond welcome and bring a quantum leap in the performance of things, others are just an unnecessary flex that actually carries greater risk than benefit.
In Eindhoven they're now test driving the next-generation version of these buses. (New Generation Citea). Maybe if you pull some strings you can give us a preview. ;)
We have Proterra e-buses in Miami now. They're only a portion of our fleet, however. Most of our buses are still CNG.
Interesting video. Not into engineering but love the enthusiasm. Subbed, look forward to your future content!👍🌷
Thank you
I have the same vibe as you whenever brand new busses came to my city in mexico, I was so excited everytime I spotted one. Even though they dont stack up at all compared to these, im still proud that my city is investing into better busses to what we have currently.
18:30 that is what usually happens to the windshield when you have an passenger standing in the front of the buss passionately excited.
as for looking better: many electric buses don't have a different appearance than the diesel powered version of the same model range.
Also mirror cameras became a thing also on buses from other brands, but also on trucks and cars
Camera mirrors on semi trucks is cool, I saw a truck like that a few weeks ago in rural Netherlands, was a sick look
@@ayoungengineer the mirror cams on Audis look cool as well, really fits their design. It's also a thing on some new fire apparatus as well. Slowly getting more and more popular.
Honestly even the diesel bus was pretty quiet. Love NL uts like living in the future
Great video, nice and informative!
1:08 I don’t usually do that with buses, but with trains, I still admire buses, but I don’t take tons of picture, but almost every time I take the train here in switzerland I take a picture, and find some new details which I previously overlooked.
I feel sad about getting jealous at the payment options in Dutch buses. German bus companies (that I've seen) never implemented card payment at all. We always had either cash or a chip card for a monthly subscription. Lately, there are phone apps with digital tickets or distance based fares too, but still no card at all.
Tap on, Tap off systems exist in a lot of transit systems even in the us.
But not nation or even state wide.
@@therealdutchidiot Why would it matter if it is statewide or nationwide in such a large country with massive states. What is the issue with the slight inconvenience that is having a drawer of cards for every city you travel to.
@@MegaLokopoIt's exactly the point of having cards: having one, not multiple for every city.
@@therealdutchidiot The point of having a card is not having one time use tickets. If we didn't have cards you'd have to buy a paper ticket for a trip, day, week, or month, and if you didn't use it enough you would lose the invested money. With a card, once you put money on it, it doesn't expire.
@@MegaLokopo Cards to expire. Especially in the US the expiry time is damned short.
what is the significance of the green, yellow, and red lines? why would they want to know what 35 meters behind them looks like?
Those buses are great but lets consider that in China there are cities which have not merely a few electric buses but an entirely electric bus network already and those are places multiple times as large as Amsterdam. That doesn't make those buses in Amsterdam worse, just tells us that we better get things going and fast in Europe. E-buses are absolutely great and I can't wait for Vienna to finally getting proper e-buses rather than the few toy e-buses in the centre.
Man, I am from the US, if you say Europe has to get things going, you better go see the disaster going right now in the US 😂 China has crazy civil engineering I heard, maybe I'll go one day
@@ayoungengineer Fair enough ;)
in my city of hamburg they plan on electrifying all busses until 2030 (and hamburg heavily relies on their bus network so that are like 1.5K+ busses to electrify)
they only order electric busses since 2020 as the senate decided. hamburg doesn't have much to show in terms of public transit but at least there they aren't all to bad
and in my opinion electric busses aren't just an enviromental improvment, they are also just more compfortable to ride on in general (and quiet which is nice).
everyone despises having to take a long bus ride, but with these it actually isn't all to bad
Omg great video 😊
Thank you! 📸🚍⚡️🚥🔌
They might be nice, but honestly the best electric buses are the Solaris Urbino electrics and the Mercedes eCitaro's ^^
I heard the Mercedes ones are crazy 👀
Also die fahren auch in Münster. Ich arbeite dort. Dort fährt z.B. die Linie 6 und Linie 8 in 20 Minuten Takt (beide fast selbe Linien, also 10 Minuten Takt) und dort fahren die VDL Busse und die Mercedes ECitaro. Super Busse 😊
I heard Mercedes e-buses are even nicer than this one I showed in my video
I was walking in busy market place in Navi Mumbai, India. I dint know there was a big electric bus 5feet behind me, and I got to know when it gently honked. I freaked out like one would seeing something giant following you stealthily.
Narrator reminds me of Dylan. Too cheery. Almost giggling.
Some country in world has Busway 🚍 as side lane like Tramway 🚋 Electric Bus and Trolleybus 🚎 on System and than you get BRT Bus and LRT Light Rail 🚈 Transit/Tram in middle lane of road.
Some of me thinks the green line being stopped at corners is not a design flaw but an intentional feature. Buses have a large swing when they turn, so it helps the driver see where the came from and check that any cars ahead of the green line don't come to close or move around them during these maneuvers.
Well...most of these features were not rivolutionary at all but I understand that from an American point of view it may appear to be so. In my small town of Reggio Emilia we've been using contactless payment (with debit card) for quite some years now. We have the "Man Lion's City CNG efficient hybrid" buses (both 12 meter and articulated 18 meter) and these have everything mentioned here, except the humming thing and the overhead charging, none of which are actually needed since these buses are hybrid (so they get charged directly at the depot and are never too quiet for a humming).
Overall I think Man Lion City buses are a fantastic option.
It would be like this here in the UK if they hadn't sold everything off in the 80s and 90s.
Bro UK, I went to London in 2019, seems like it has been on a decline recently 🥸