Low floor buses and kerb damage

[Towers]

That familiar sound as a bus swings into a layby…scrape…cue much wincing…

It can’t be just me who wonders why this has never been addressed, either by the highways authorities or bus manufacturers? Just about every bus you look at, whether brand new or ancient, has got the inevitable damage all round the lower front nearside and under the entrance platform.

I recall when the dreaded super-high kerbs first appeared 20 years ago or so clueless councils were installing them in locations which made it impossible to get a bus into a layby and lined up to the kerb without risking taking the floor out - has there never been any feedback about this? The whole point of the ‘kneeling bus’ is surely to line up with the kerb and then lower the front, I’ve never understood what’s gained by using kerbstones that are at exactly the same ride height as the bus in its raised position! The current generation of low floors seem also to be vulnerable to damage from normal height kerbs, particularly if a poor road surface causes a bump on approach and sets the suspension bouncing.

Just an idle curiosity, but it seems a daft state of affairs that this has never been looked at properly.

 

[computerSaysNo]

Regarding kerbs which provide the same step height as the step onto a bus: I think these are perfect when the bus can pull up to the stop without any or much steering, i.e. the bus stop kerb is close to the position of the normal kerb. It's obviously not ideal where the bus stop is in a layby if the layby is so short that the driver needs to make use of the front overhang in order to stop fully in the layby; this length is going to change depending on the length of the bus though, so I don't think there's a "one size fits all" solution. Sometimes using the front overhang is also needed in longer laybys e.g. if parked vehicles or roadworks are blocking part of the layby.
I agree though that improvements could be made.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Regarding kerbs which provide the same step height as the step onto a bus: I think these are perfect when the bus can pull up to the stop without any or much steering, i.e. the bus stop kerb is close to the position of the normal kerb. It's obviously not ideal where the bus stop is in a layby if the layby is so short that the driver needs to make use of the front overhang in order to stop fully in the layby; this length is going to change depending on the length of the bus though, so I don't think there's a "one size fits all" solution. Sometimes using the front overhang is also needed in longer laybys e.g. if parked vehicles or roadworks are blocking part of the layby.
I agree though that improvements could be made.

Often little thought goes into these high kerb bus stops. The idea is good - no need to kneel the bus for fully level boarding so time is saved and there's one less thing to go wrong. However what you really want is to cut the kerb in just before the stop so the bus has space to swing in before reaching the high kerb with the front door, so only a short door-length piece of raised kerb is there and sticks out by maybe half a metre.

It's interesting that TfL has generally avoided these, preferring automatic ramps.

 

[Spsf3232]

It's so bad that new ADL stock comes with a heavy duty metal skid plate to stop floor damage.

High kerbs are only good if you can get to them straight on and no good in short bays. Cue the scrape and the inevitable door that then refuses to open as the floor has been pushed up

 

[joieman]

High kerbs are only good if you can get to them straight on and no good in short bays. Cue the scrape and the inevitable door that then refuses to open as the floor has been pushed up

Followed by an undue amount of time spent lingering in the workshop!

 

[Man of Kent]

Step height above road level on an unkneeled bus is usually in excess of 300mm (317mm is shown on ADL Enviro200 drawings). Kneeling will typically reduce this to around 240-250mm, which is still considerably above a standard kerb height of 125mm. Hence raising the kerbs to reduce the gap - and bear in mind, early low floor buses did not have ramps, or at best, portable ones that took time to deploy.
This worked well on an early low floor project I was involved with, where the kerbs were raised to 180mm. The height gap was small enough that most users (including those unaccompanied) could get themselves on or off without assistance, as long as the bus was close to the kerb, for which a number of stops were rebuilt with full length bus boarders.
Subsequently, the costs of doing this for every stop were too much, and so short bus boarders or partial infill of laybys were often employed, still with the raised kerbs, as long as the bus could reach the stop without having to overhang the pavement and incur the damage identified by the OP.
But not everyone understood these principles, and regrettably there are too many examples of poorly laid out stops where damage can be incurred - particularly if the kerb height exceeds 180mm.
When it is done properly, it helps everyone: a smaller step up from the kerb (and fewer tripping incidents), reduced tyre damage to buses, and faster entry and exit for a bus in and out of a bus stop. Ironically, the requirement for ramps means that in some places buses have to stop further away from the kerb, because narrow pavements don't give wheelchair users enough room to manoeuvre.