New vehicle tenders for 2016-18:
specification preview
September 2015 – J Bickerton
Executive summary: This document outlines some ideas within Reading Buses which may form part
of the vehicle specification within the next three years. These ideas are
indicative and are formed from work with demonstrator vehicles, concept
work within the company and from study of ‘best in class’ transport and
design.
‘If I had asked my customers what they wanted,
theywouldhavesaid“afasterhorse”’.
1. Introduction: The passenger car market has moved on somewhat since 1991. The Kia Pride
was an entry level car and was panned by contemporary reviews as "out of
date". Since then even base-model cars have gained spec, refinement,
reliability, performance and efficiency. However since the low floor bus was
launched in the same year, the list is less impressive. Buses are now heavier,
less efficient and more complex. Reliability is more subjective but the net
effect of more systems without rigorous applications engineering cannot be
positive. If a £250,000 car rattled as much after three years as most modern
buses do then it'd be unsaleable. It wouldn't be tolerated in a £10k car.
This isn't a time for defensiveness - "our bus rattles less than the competition",
"we've tackled weight and saved 90kg" - this is an industry-wide issue, caused
by the avarice indifference of operators who accept less than the best, and
by manufacturers who tolerate high levels of warranty rework in the field as
a cost of doing business. We pay Ferrari money, build in Ferrari volumes but
don't make use of Ferrari materials to reduce weight. Fundamentally we still
build a glazed body on a third party frame and present it for sale as an
integrated product, like the carrozzeria of the 1960s.
Luckily we have a trailblazer. The passenger car industry has moved on and
is now signposting the route for integration, testing, refinement, technology;
many of the features explored in this document are available in a £25k car.
Others are just applications of existing solutions into a passenger transport
environment, some of which are emerging into the heavy-duty market
already. If manufacturers cannot respond to these demands our products
won't compete with other modes, we will lose market share to Uber, PRT and
the other emerging threats and very quickly they will take our business.
And if we don't demand these measures and more, we're letting them.
Reading Buses is a pioneering company who many in the industry watch
carefully to learn from and improve. Our volumes aren’t in a league of the
major PLCs but we provide a highly visible showcase for the wider bus industry
in the UK and beyond. Much of the industry press sees Reading as a trailblazer
for trends and progress, and our track record contains many industry ‘firsts’:
the first major modern CNG fleet; contactless charging; class-leading seat
pitch; 100% colour-branded fleet by route. This history runs back to the
innovation of “Premier Routes” in 2003 and this success was built on a mindset
of pushing the boundaries.
Reading is planning to issue a tender in late 2015 for 40 double-deck vehicles
to be delivered over the next three years. This document provides an early
insight into some of the features which will form part of those vehicle
specifications. The ideas here are indicative at this stage and vehicle bids will
be scored according to the ambition and deliverability of each supplier’s
tender. The basis for these new vehicles will be on Reading Buses’ current
standard vehicle specification. Individual features will be weighted to assess
Reading’s preferred bid, but these weightings will not be released. Suppliers
will be encouraged to produce a specification against each requirement.
2. Drivers for change: Innovation is pushed by drivers for change, not pulled by market demand.
The driving factors to encourage operators to change their product which
have influenced these specifications are:
1. Customer ‘wow’ – first and foremost, we must deliver exciting and
desirable products. The Apple Ipod isn’t the greatest MP3 player; the
sound quality, storage, connectivity and price aren’t market-leading,
but the product brings an emotional connection which drives repeat
custom. We must find a similar route to consistently exceed customer
expectations if we will succeed in changing the image of our industry
and raise the profile of public transport.
2. Flexibility – this is a key driver for Reading Buses, who operate with a
fully route-branded fleet. This constraint brings a dividend in revenue
by delivering ‘customer wow’ and making the network easy to navigate
and more accessible, but we must look at ways to balance (or tackle)
this compromise to keep a flexible fleet while still delivering this
differentiation between routes on the street.
3. Whole life cost – vehicles must be no more expensive than current
best-in-class buses, measured across their whole life, and should show
continuous improvement as the vehicles age and all parties gain more
experience of operating. The residual value of the vehicle after ten
years is a key milestone for our business as we strive to maintain a low
average fleet age.
4. Safety – this is a key part of our industry brand and should not be
threatened, but the passenger car industry particularly is blazing a trail
ahead of the heavy vehicle sector. By understanding our customers and
how they use our services we can implement ‘safety by design’ for
ourselves, vehicle occupants, other road users and even pedestrians.
Each measure on the following pages has been rated with a lead and
secondary driver which leads the development.
3. For 2016 vehicle intake: The following features are available on today’s market as standalone
products or systems, configuration changes or technology which could be
developed with a short lead time to bring to market.
2016 External features:
3.1. Mapping tree strikes on upper deck front protector, so operators can track
hotspots and cut down trees before damage occurs.
Primary: Whole-life cost. Subordinate: Safety
The upper deck tree protector absorbs impacts from low foliage etc; a microphone or
vibration sensor mounted within the assembly could detect these impacts, record their
location and transmit the data (either live or at the end of the day) to allow operators to
produce a hotspot map of locations with a high incidence.
3.2. Projected lighting including logos beyond step area onto pavement
Primary: Customer wow. Subordinate: Safety
Step lighting is required by law but few manufacturers have taken this further. There is
potential to extend the operator’s ownership beyond the step edge by projecting a welcome
message onto the pavement outside the vehicle, improving safety for boarding and alighting
passengers as well as boosting that ‘customer wow’ factor. See also luxury cars which can
project customized logos from the wing mirrors, such as the Range Rover Evoque.
3.3. Stopping the 'kneel' function when the step contacts a kerb or obstruction,
preventing damage to the step area.
Primary: Whole-life cost. Subordinate: Safety
Vehicles are damaged regularly, and repaired brutally, when the weight of the vehicle is
brought to rest on the delicate and relatively complex front pillar and bookleaf ramp
assembly in the front door aperture. A simple interlock would reduce this issue, but the best
concepts will have no moving parts and won’t be subject to incidental damage as the front
of the vehicle is swung across high kerbs.
3.4. Best-in-class destination information.
Primary: Customer wow. Subordinate: Flexibility
There’s no point running a bus if customers don’t know where it goes. Destinations should be
driven by the ETM and capable of showing a live ‘vias’ list based on vehicle location. Front
destinations should be white/silver and double height, and displays on the nearside, offside
and rear should be in white/silver at very high contrast and resolution.
2016 Internal features:
3.5. Providing bins on board so that customers can discard rubbish cleanly.
Primary: Customer wow. Subordinate: Whole-life cost
A self-explanatory system – current ‘best in class’ vehicles have ticket bins which can hold a
single can of coke, and then tip up to throw all the collected litter onto the floor when
disturbed. Bigger bins will mean buses which are cleaner in service, and easier to clean on
run-in, but these need to be stylish and integrated with the whole look and feel on-board.
3.6. Luggage pen for large shopping bags
Primary: Customer wow. Subordinate: Safety
Customers have luggage and need space to put more than just what fits around their feet!
Some manufacturers allow space for large luggage at floor level or on the wheelboxes but
few have really tackled the need to hold shopping conveniently (either in carrier bags, soft
bags or wheeled trollies), and where bags are firmly secured they’re often difficult to load
or remove from the rack, particularly for elderly or infirm customers.
3.7. Customer convenience additions
Primary: Customer wow. Subordinate: Flexibility
Other competing modes such as cars and trains offer cup holders and coat hooks to provide
that little extra convenience. These could be simple, fixed features such as the ‘metal stud’
coat hooks on Great Western Railway standard class carriages. These must remain
lightweight, robust and easy to empty and clean.
3.8. Reducing noise and rattles by setting a 'best in class' threshold for on-board noise
over a rough road surface and then measuring it.
Primary: Customer wow. Subordinate: Whole-life cost
The first step to managing a problem is to measure it. Buses rattle in a way which the
passenger car market would find totally unacceptable. In a similar way to First group's fuel
efficiency test, Reading Buses will set a best-in-class threshold for saloon noise across a poor
road surface, and measure these vehicles when new and after a year in service.
3.9. Personalised vehicles for Reading including logos in panels, on wheel trims and
printed onto floor surfaces.
Primary: Customer wow. Subordinate: Whole-life cost
Personalised consumer goods is a huge growth market, and applying this principle to
industrial design such as buses allows operators to deliver ‘customer wow’.
3.10.
Glazed ceilings and staircases for exterior and interior visual impact, and
for situational awareness while moving within vehicle.
Primary: Safety. Subordinate: Customer wow
This feature defines the New Bus for London visually more than any other, and provides a
striking appearance as well as improving safety for passengers climbing or descending while
the vehicle is in motion. Criticisms of solar gain, visibility from the upper deck around any
additional structure and of requirements for modesty screens must be addressed but the
principle of additional glazing brings light, vision and ‘customer wow’.
3.11.
Fully lowerable driver's assault screen which does not affect forward
vision or introduce reflections
Primary: Safety. Subordinate: Customer wow
Interacting with customers is part of the service we provide. While we have to acknowledge
that there are occasions when drivers might need robust protection, hopefully we can achieve
this without an assembly like a police riot van. Screens should be able to be lowered quickly
and simply so that reflections can be minimised when manouvering.
3.12.
Low-maintenance systems including lighting
Primary: Whole-life cost. Subordinate: Flexibility
The vehicle systems specified will be for best whole-life cost, including where this means an
initial investment to improve reliability. LED light units have delivered a substantial benefit
in vehicle availability, including LED headlamps, and this principle can be extended to other
vehicle systems with high intervention rates such as starting systems, cooling systems and
vehicle glazing.
3.13.
Indirect lighting eg starlight effect
Primary: Customer wow. Subordinate: Whole-life cost
Indirect lighting gives a softer, diffuse effect in the vehicle which reduces glare. The Rolls
Royce ‘Celestial’ option allows customers to specify a Starfield effect on the headlining of
their cars, and we’d like to explore this road. We’ll be interested to hear about options for
using lighting effects including diffusion, brightness and lensing to give ‘customer wow’,
reduce internal reflections and improve our ability to see and clean the vehicles effectively.
3.14.
Contactless charging points for phones and tablets (as well as USB)
Primary: Customer wow. Subordinate: Flexibility
This growth market for technology makes this onboard facility more accessible for all, and
has been prototyped on Reading Buses’ Claret Spritzer vehicles (to the ‘qi’ standard). It
should be possible to extend this to serve all seats using, for example, a shaped window ledge
to hold customers’ phones.
3.15.
Dashboard layout to include a master switch which can be reached from
outside cab but ignition & start which can only be reached from driver's seat
Primary: Whole-life cost. Subordinate: Safety
For teams working on vehicles for maintenance, cleaning etc, it is sometimes necessary to
turn on the interior lights, or to switch off a master switch which has been left on. Attention
should be paid to the switch layout such that these functions can be reached without climbing
fully into the cab, delivering a productivity and safety benefit. The ADL E400 MMC is best in
class here.
3.16.
Next stop information ‘designed in’ rather than retrofitted
Primary: Customer wow. Subordinate: Flexibility
Operators’ own next-stop information displays often look like a retrofit in a brand-new
vehicle, and the screen quality is often not comparable with the retail sector. TFT
information and advertising screens should be included on each deck, visible to all and
mounted in such a way so as to minimise impeding any forward vision. These should separate
locations for displaying advertising (commercial or operator’s own) from essential journey
information such as next-stop displays.
3.17.
Double wheelchair bay which does not obscure vision or conflict with
parents with buggies
Primary: Customer wow. Subordinate: Safety
A long-standing gripe for bus operators, there are some manufacturers who are not able to
produce a DDA-compliant wheelchair dock which does not reduce the vision of other seated
customers, for example through an ‘ironing board’ style arrangement on the nearside. This
is a particular frustration for provincial double-deck vehicles where the wheelchair sits on
the nearside, and where the offside vision is further impeded by the staircase, cab and other
internal fittings.
The 2016 vehicle intake will feature two wheelchair bays, and will include the current
Reading standard offside buggy bay to accept up to three unfolded buggies. Users of these
bays, whether seated or as wheelchair users, must be able to see the next-stop information
screen.
2016 Back office, data & support:
3.18.
Manufacturer stated standard times for servicing and common repair jobs,
plus fuelling and cleaning cycle times.
Primary: Whole-life cost. Subordinate: Flexibility
A standard item for some manufacturers, it would be useful for workshop planning (and to
get a true picture of whole life cost) for manufacturers to give stated times for more than
just repair jobs as part of whole-vehicle support.
3.19.
Manufacturer stated evacuation time for a full seated load of passengers
(using normal exits with the vehicle upright)
Primary: Safety. Subordinate: Whole-life cost
In light of several industry incidents across the UK where vehicles in service have seen fires,
major collisions or other emergencies, the successful (or otherwise) evacuation of vehicles
has been driven by the competence and clear thinking of staff on the scene. On the basis
that measurement will focus a manufacturer’s thinking and may highlight areas where there
are existing issues, this part of the vehicle tender is included in the spirit of continuous
improvement.
3.20.
Technical aftermarket support including software to access vehicle
systems, technical training and a help desk for support.
Primary: Whole-life cost. Subordinate: Safety
Unlike the passenger car sector (and to a lesser extent, the heavy truck market) buses are
sold to operators who will generally complete maintenance and repair in-house. It is
understandable that manufacturers are nervous to allow operators to change parameters and
reconfigure elements of the vehicle but it is no longer acceptable to charge separately for
software to access the vehicle systems for routine maintenance and diagnosis of issues.
Manufacturers may offer factory-based training but courses are expensive in terms of man
hours, accommodation etc. Other manufacturers have a small number of training videos for
remote training, and this approach is scaleable and must be a key focus as part of the whole
vehicle package.
3.21.
Remote fluid reservoir to obviate topping between services.
Primary: Whole-life cost. Subordinate: Safety
As part of a drive to reduce maintenance interventions between planned inspections, systems
such as this allow the vehicle to operate for extended periods without attention. Systems
must have a clear and quantified sight glass, or ideally remote access to allow operators to
see the fluid consumption rate and time remaining before the reserve quantity is exhausted.
Any sight glasses must remain clear and visible through the life of the vehicle.
4. For 2017 vehicle intake: The following features are not currently available but could be developed with a
relativelyshortleadtimetobringtomarket.
2017 Interior:
4.1. External filling of marketing information including leaflet and poster holders
Primary: Whole-life cost. Subordinate: Safety
We place marketing information inside our vehicles, either to give out information or to allow
customers to take copies of timetables. While we’re moving to providing this information
online the market is not yet ready for a paperless bus service. We’d like to present our
marketing messages digitally, through a cost-effective high quality digital media which allows
us to show ‘poster’ messages behind the driver and on cove panel surfaces, with a system
which can be updated over-the-air (and maybe in context of location to advertise businesses
in the area which the bus is passing through).
Similarly, we provide timetable leaflets on board the vehicle which are replenished each
night by the fuelling and cleaning team. Ideally these leaflets would be replenished from
outside the vehicle, reducing the labour requirement and improving safety and cleanliness,
minimising operative movements on and off the vehicles and reducing the chance of
contaminating surfaces with diesel or oil.
4.2. Minimising use of blown air for heating and cooling
Primary: Customer wow. Subordinate: Flexibility
Convective heating offers the most reliable route to a warm bus, since there are fewest
number of moving parts. However convector radiators are complex and difficult to clean,
and it is recognised that it is necessary to change the air within the vehicle to reduce
condensation etc. We’d like to explore installation of opening windows on the front and rear
of the vehicle to use natural airflow as the vehicle moves.
4.3. Heads-up driver's display
Primary: Safety. Subordinate: Flexibility
A heads-up display for drivers to see contextual information (speed, passenger stop request
etc) would reduce distraction and allow a driver’s eye to remain focused close to infinity,
which reduces the time to focus back on the real world.
This requirement would be retrofittable to preceding vehicles which are not equipped,
depending on the hardware requirement.
4.4. Minimising solar gain and sun glare
Primary: Customer wow. Subordinate: Safety
Solar gain drives cooling and air conditioning requirements on buses, and glare can be a
comfort issue for customers as well as affecting their ability to see upcoming stops. A high
quality bus would have robust moveable blinds or a reactive window tint to reduce glare. It
is essential that these still allow potential customers outside the vehicle to see customers
already on board, as a security issue and to build customer demand.
This requirement would be retrofittable to preceding vehicles which are not equipped,
depending on the hardware requirement.
2017 Exterior:
4.5. Improved ground clearance, swept-in skirt panels to minimise manouevring
damage.
Primary: Whole-life cost. Subordinate: Safety
Buses operate close to kerbs and street furniture, and cosmetic damage looks unsightly and
costs disproportionately to repair. Low overhangs, deep skirt panels and square corners mean
buses are prone to damage by design and we’d like to tackle that, looking first at reducing
the risk by moving panels inwards and upwards away from the conflict zone (for example
rounding off corners and ‘tucking in’ the buttons of skirt panels), and then by looking at
repairability using fusible mounts and better design to reduce consequential damage and
improving the repairability of ligher ‘cosmetic’ damage.
Reading Buses have experimented with deformable rubber composite panels with very good
results, and we look forward to carrying this work onward with an engaged vehicle
manufacturer to embed that technology into future production vehicles.
4.6. Durable rugged panels in high damage areas ie NSF corner and (NS) skirts
Primary: Whole-life cost. Subordinate: Safety
With so many urban miles and an aim to get close to kerbs in bus stops, we have to accept
that contact will occasionally occur – but does that contact have to mean damage? Where
panels are likely to suffer contact, durable plastics similar to skirt panels on "crossover" and
city car bodies could offer relief. See the Citroen C4 Cactus "air bump" door panels or the
older Rover Streetwise concept for more details.
4.7. Colour changing panels
Primary: Flexibility. Subordinate: Whole-life cost
Reading Buses are leading the bus market in terms of route-branding for the fleet and the
benefits to customers and revenue are deeply embedded in our business. However, the
coloured fleet constrains how we operate as a business and impacts on our ability to react to
situations and schedule the operation efficiently. If vehicles could be painted in a static
colour and then use LEDs embedded into panels or concealed within moulding strips to
illuminate the vehicle according to its route, the vehicle could be more flexible within our
fleet. This principle has been introduced in destination displays but can compromise
readability. Where the vehicle could be coloured to complement a destination display with
high contrast, the benefits will be for customers and operators alike.
2017 Back office, data & support:
4.8. Using operational data to inform maintenance
Primary: Whole-life cost. Subordinate: Safety
Most operators perform maintenance on an interval basis, preferring to change engine oil
every eg 84 days regardless of the mileage, duty cycle or hours. In critical applications this
simple approach will remain appropriate but on door maintenance, for example, greasing
intervals could be controlled by the number of cycles performed. This requires the vehicle
to log this information and make the counter available, either on the vehicle or over-the-air,
to allow operators to plan and complete this work.
This requirement would be retrofittable to preceding vehicles which are not equipped,
depending on the hardware requirement.
4.9. Remote condition monitoring via continuous over-the-air access to OBD
(powertrain CAN) and other vehicle systems
Primary: Whole-life cost. Subordinate: Safety
Data systems allow greater access to vehicle operating data which can influence operating
safety and efficiency. By giving access over-the-air, operators can monitor conditions and
trends and begin to predict issues and failures before they occur. Extending this idea could
give air quality information, passenger loadings or traffic density in real time from each
vehicle, helping operators to understand customers and the operating environment.
This requirement would be retrofittable to preceding vehicles which are not equipped,
depending on the hardware requirement.
4.10.
Continuous improvement ownership of vehicle design
Primary: Whole-life cost. Subordinate: Flexibility
Vehicle operators often work in partnership with manufacturers, much more so than in other
sectors. By comparison, phone apps aren’t a single purchase but a continuously-updated
product which users “buy into” rather than purchase outright. This approach is beginning to
appear in vehicles with Tesla providing over-the-air updates for their vehicles. This is a
principle rather than a tangible feature, but by understanding design upgrades and
improvements and improving connectivity to allow updates to be pushed out to vehicles,
current issues with old software versions won’t occur and diagnosis and repair can be
performed remotely.
5. For 2018 vehicle intake: The following features represent the future of bus travel, but use technology
transfer from the automotive or information sectors and will need some
systems integration work to bring these to the bus sector.
5.1. Driver guidance for the bus stop manoeuvre
Primary: Safety. Subordinate: Whole-life cost
Our busiest vehicles serve more than 7000 bus stops per week, and our drivers aim to present
the vehicle at each stop neatly, as close to the kerb as possible and to provide a level access
to the vehicle. This is made harder by raised kerbs, obstructive parking and If a skilled driver
makes a mistake once every 10,000 stops that’s three instances of damage every month on
every vehicle.
The industry has tried ‘guided buses’ using concrete kerbs and castor wheels, which give
good positioning accuracy but haven’t really managed widespread adoption because of the
need to install on-street infrastructure and ideally to have segregated roadspace. Meanwhile,
technology to guide a car into a parking space is now migrating from executive vehicles like
the Mercedes S-Class into the supermini sector, with Active Park Assist available on Ford’s
Fiesta as an £850 option including VAT.
In this context, a vision and ultrasonic system to guide a bus into any bus stop without
groundworks or excluding other traffic will help drivers to deliver that perfect pull-up every
time.
5.2. Autonomous yard manouevring
Primary: Whole-life cost. Subordinate: Flexibility
Every depot has an evening queue for fuelling and washing, and the labour to manage that
queue isn’t insubstantial. Whether moving a vehicle two feet or two hundred yards, the time
to climb into the cab, start the engine and release the brakes is appreciable. If the vehicles
were sufficiently aware of their situation and operation was safe vehicles could autonomously
move forward in the fuelling queue, leaving staff to focus on washing, cleaning and inspecting
the fleet ready for the following day’s service. By extension it would be possible for the
parked fleet to rearrange the vehicles during the night to leave the vehicles arranged to give
the best run-out
We already see many demonstrations of autonomous vehicles for road applications, proposals
for autonomous shipping and in warehousing and container port logistics autonomous vehicle
operation is already well established. The legal obstacles to autonomous driving on the road
wouldn’t apply in an off-highway situation in an enclosed bus yard, and the technology to
deliver these systems is already available in the emergency braking systems which are
becoming mandatory in the LGV sector, and in the adaptive cruise control systems which
come out of this technology.
5.3. Tapered front and rear corners to minimise manouevring damage and tailswing
risk.
Primary: Whole-life cost. Subordinate: Customer wow
Further to the repairability requirement for the 2017 intake, this work could go further as a
more fundamental approach to vehicle design. As buses turn corners and approach kerbs, the
front corners of the vehicle swing over kerbs and the rear ‘tailswing’ can push into other
lanes. The original concept for the Ford Ka has an oval plan view to reduce parking and
manouevring damage, and these ideas can be carried into the bus market. Low overhangs,
deep skirt panels and square corners mean buses are prone to damage by design and we’d
like to tackle that.
5.4. No ‘A-pillar’ for driver's cab, to maximise near 360° view
Primary: Safety. Subordinate: Whole-life cost
Body pillars and large mirrors present large blind spots for drivers, obscuring car-size objects
at close quarters. A fish-bowl windscreen with wide vision arcs will improve safety and
benefits manoeuvring and will reduce body damage.
5.5. Driver tracking of blindspots and rearward vision
Primary: Safety. Subordinate: Whole-life cost
Mirrors are legally required for buses but they do not have to be the primary method for
situational awareness. It would be possible to complement direct vision mirrors with monitors
in cab (or a head-up display) and with audible warnings for monitoring blind spots and
distances to objects in close proximity. As emergency braking systems become mandatory in
the LGV market, the technology required to implement these systems will be available in the
sector and bears consideration by vehicle operators. Aftermarket vision systems such as
Mobileye or ASL360, or Tier 2 products such as Siemens’ Blind Spot Detection are already
established in this market.
5.6. External control of vehicle eg for reversing at very low speeds, through wireless,
wired or body-mounted controls
Primary: Safety. Subordinate: Whole-life cost
We are not the only operator to suffer parking and yard collisions, either bus-on-object or
bus-on-bus issues. When drivers reverse into objects, they’re usually in the cab which is up
to 12 metres from the conflict and facing in the other direction. If the vehicle could be
controlled externally, perhaps using a wired controller and maybe only for off-highway use
only, it would allow the driver to be positioned with a much clearer view of the area by
working as his own banksperson. See also the Jaguar-LandRover smartphone controlled
manoeuvring of a Range Rover as an example of best-in-class technology.
6. Overriding principles: We are conscious that some of these requirements are specific to Reading
Buses. Those which can be applied to vehicles for sales into other customers
are likely to be prioritised but we live in a world of personalisation, and our
services on the street are not likely to be very different to those of most
stage-carriage operators in the UK and beyond. These features would sell,
and sell well, once they are proven in service giving the best customer
experience.
The features detailed in this document are intended for discussion within and
between supplier organisations. A tender document containing some or all of
these features will be issued in due course, but please contact John
Bickerton, Chief Engineer at Reading Buses; jbickerton@reading-buses.co.uk;
for more information or an informal discussion.