"we learn new things everday" thread

ZYX2005 SG

this thread will be a series of sharing some info i been researched on>>

Bus ticketing equprment

in the 80s, SBS experimented with then quite famous Almex Autofare 3 system. however they settled with the "cheaper" Sanyo S-Light for thier OTS schemes.

the system had many similarities in design to the Almex Autofare 3 systems. in terms of the push buttons on he console, it look very the same to an Almex Autofare 3 (this one I saw in book) .

today Almex still makes bus ticketing equipment.

as for he magenetic farecard era, SBS used Sanyo's S-Light generation 2 equipment. basically an upgrade off the old machine but abble to handle magnetic farecards.

ERG systems tied up with Sony to equip us with this EZ-Link system in around 2001. it is of worthy note that in 1994 3 years prior to 1997 launch of the Hong Kong octopus card system, ERG also develop for Hong Kong their system. also based on the same Sony radio-based signaling technology and equipment that our EZ-Link use.

ERG today is a very big player in the bus ticketing equipment industry, actively providing expertise in San Francisco and in new South Wales Aust where their readers are the exact same model as ours.

MALAYSIA

Incidentally while doing research i found out that Wayfarer and Philips provide some ticketing equipment to Malaysia bus operators with the Phillips haaving the Touch n go for toll paying in Malaysia .

the Wayfarer machine is of use on some Causseway link buses. it issues thermal tickets. Wayfarer is a company from Uk and always in hot competition with Almex in the 80s in the United Kingdom. today not so sure. hahaah

Of note some of ex-SBS Sanyo S-Light equipment can be found in some Johore transit buses. And still with he SBS logo on the machines. woooh.

ZYX

AntiDennisLance SG

That thread is somewhere around, u just need to search for it.

For the magnetic farecard, try searching for "Slightfare".

ZYX2005 SG

origins

Commuter.

people started using the word commuter in realtiion to transport travel by the mid 90s.

The word originated from a form of rather new fare payment scheme introduced in he UK in he early 1920s. it was the idea of seasonpasses.

then people say that they commute (to commute a sum off money is to change it into another form of legal tender or piece of paper) their cash payment into a season pass card that is to be shown to he driver.

of course using a season pass being bought from sales office at big prices for monthly travel, such people with the cards would want to off set their cost in getting a season pass. in the end they travel a lot on the bus. they used the word commuter to mean they travel a lot with the card.

much later the word Commuter became fixed to regardless of whether u have season pass or pay cash.

+++the word commute also means to change a prison sentence from X years to another YY years.

fare coinbox

why is our farebox locked like a security vault today? well according to research, the coinbox originated from America where it was rather unsafe to be a bus driver. then people rob buses of their money. the fare box was introduced with a security lock feature. this means u drop he coin down a hole into the vault n no one can get to it

Later the practice crossed the Atlantic ocean over to he fair shores of Europe. the practice readily got adapted not for security reasons, but for the fact it speed up bus boarding. u juzz drop ur coin into a box. this was replacing the poor bus conductor then whom punched tickets using Bell punch (actual company providing the conductor tickets n punch) .. bell punch hole puncher n those coloured tickets with diff colour for diff cash denominations.

so they said bye to the conductor. the practice then spread over to Singapore in 1970s.

for those who wish the trace Bell Punch Systems if it ever existed today, its now absorbed into ...Almex.

Almex ate up Bell Punch dunno when.

ZYX

ZYX2005 SG

tried that din get anything.
is Slightfare a product of Almex systems a\also?

ZYX

AntiDennisLance SG

It is so simple.

1. Open browser and go to http://buses.sgforums.com.
2. Press Ctrl-F and type in "Did you know".
3. Press Enter.
4. The thread link shud be highlighted for you by your browser.

Slightfare... no idea. I only saw that label at the back of every farecard validator machine whenever i sat near it. I also remember that the model number was something simple, like VLD-001 or something like that.

ZYX2005 SG

how do they collect fare?

the Bus conductor

long gone from Singapore roads, the bus conductor once walked the planks of the old buses of STC n SBS times. but why bus conductor n how does he do his job?

Why?
the need to generate revenue when it comes to running a bus company means u need to collect money from ur customers. this can be done in many ways but things in the United Kingdom settled down to the one man who will do this job. the Bus conductor.

howw?
first a bus conductor will carry many things with him.

1) waybill: a slip of paper accounting for the amount of money he collects. the Buss cconductor will need to fill in this paper with the numbers on his tickets he issued and count the differences between the numbers for each ticket. the Bus conductor recives his waybill before he starts his job at the start of the day and then hands it in at the depot.

statisticians will then handle the waybill info to count the revenue out. in the early days ridership also can be found out from the waybills

2) tickets of different color. for each cash denomination . the tickets will generally have a 4 digit counting number, some fare stages in numbers arranged in square boxes the size of a punch hole.

3) hole puncher and bell ringer. this piece of equipment is exclusive to then bell punch . they made this bell punch. the conductor uses the punch in this way

a passenger will tell him the fare he/she is paying. say 50 cents. So he takes out the next 50 cent ticket to pass to passenger. he punches the ticket at where the passenger boards the bus. the punched stub with the fare number falls into a recepticle below the puncher. a bell rings indicating a transaction is complete.

at the end of the day, all the punched out ticket things 9preferably with the stage number clearly on them) will be sorted out by people n how people travel n travel patterns are determined from these small pieces of paper.

they also will sort them by colour and then calculate and make sure the amount of money collected tally with the waybill's numbers.

at th end of the day, the conductor will write down the last ticket number issued for each denomination into the waybill form and calculates he difference.

4) a bag to hold the money collected.

so basically this means the conductor has to steady himself on the bus as fares r being collected n he has to know who has paid and who has not paid. not a safe job if the conductor has bad sense of balance on the bus.

the conductor system was deemed to cubersome,prone to robberies, not safe to walk on bus, n wage intensive and so bus conductor gave way to OMO. one man operation.

ZYX

ZYX2005 SG

http://www.hoeft-wessel.com/en/almex/index.htm

above is the almex fare system webby. i sorry forgot to include.

ZYX2005 SG

today my topic of interest were the Seddon pennine 354U buses SBs once had under Woodlands depot.

did a search on the web and found out that there are some still in new Zealand. ours the engine not sure if it was the Perkins p 6 ones that are listed in the new Zealand websites.

u may find listing of rego of our Seddon buses in sgwwiki.

the seddon were built by Soon Chow with chassis agent in probably malaysia. it is rumored that they served green bus s170 cross border service before they got absorbed by SBS.

it is rumored that we had 16 units

A further search on the web reveals that Seddon makes trucks called Seddon tkinson

these trucks brand or line has since been eaten up by iveco bus now under the iris-iveco brand and the model Seddon Atkinson trucks was discontinued from 2006

ZYX
Source
sgwiki
Mike Davis book
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seddon_Atkinson

ZYX2005 SG

SCANIA:
chassis model codes, how they name them??

due to the recent introduction of the new series, so called 5th series of bus from scania, they have changed the coding. however for those who wonder why there is such names like k95UB being used for K230Ub, this explains why some of us insist on using the old coding.

SCANIA older style naming of chassis>>.

Note: MOST Scania chassii have rear mounted engines, there are very few mid mounted underfloor examples)

The prefix applies to how the engine is mounted.

L = Vertically mounted engine, tilted 30 degrees to the left (not sure how it is tilted as such)
K = Vertically mounted engine
N = vertically mounted engine, horizontally opposed (east-west mounted)
F = front engined, vertically mounted.
I'm sure there are others, so please help.

These are the digits which signify the engine capacity, and follow immediately after the prefix.

9 = 9 litre engine (from 1st to 4th series)
11 = 11 litre engine (from 1st to 3rd series)
12 = 12 litre engine (from 4th series)

The following digits, which follow the engine capacity indicate the series

1 = 1st series
2 = 2nd series
3 = 3rd series
4 = 4th series

The suffixes inidicate the chassis type, and other extra details.

CRB = standard/city floor height with stepped entry (1st to 3rd series)
CRL = low floor chassis (1st to 3rd series)
ARB = standard floor height articulated chassis (1st to 3rd series)
ARL = low floor articulated chassis (1st to 3rd series)
TRB = extended chassis (1st to 3rd series)

For the above, the second letter indicates where the driving controls are situated.
R = Right hand drive
L = Left hand drive

UB = low floor chassis (4th series)
UA = low floor articulated (4th series)
IB = "intercity" height chassis with stepped entry (4th series)
EB = touring chassis? (4th series)

These suffixes denotes what kind of floor height is "married" to the chassis, which is denoted by the prefix. It only applies to the 4th series of Scania chassii.

Ok, now the examples.

K94IB = vertically mounted, 9 litre motor, 4th series chassis, intercity floor chassis
N113ARB = horizontally opposed vertically mounted 11 litre motor, articulated standard/city floor chassis
L113TRB = vertically mounted 11 litre motor tilted 30 degrees to the left on an extended chassis

so yeah some of us prefer this way of naming. however one shd use the new way of referring a scania chassis in official posts. I feel is Ok for us to mention the names as k95UB as long as we understand what it really means in new gen chassis names.

ZYX + windy

ZYX2005 SG

berth types at bus interchanges

in this post i discuss on soem terms describing bus interchange berths. these terms are used international and have been referred to in a book i am reading now.

END ON BERTHS
these are berths where u drive thhe bus into the berthh n end there. mmostly they have protective barricades between bus and the passengers. End on berths are used at HBF

LAY-BY BERTHS
These are berths found in most bus int of Singapore. the buses drive into these berths n pick passengers up and drive off. they do not park there for long periods. Laay bys design wise are like our bus stop lay bys all over the Islaand

SAWTOOTH LAYOUT PATTERN
when u have many lay-By berths in an inerchange, on the map of the interchange, it looks like a sawtooth pattern. hence Saw tooth pattern.

This saw tooth phrase has been abuse to refer to lay-by berths as saw tooth berths . however the usage is not exactly correct.

ZYX

ZYX2005 SG

error!

the term sawtooth berth is another name for the lay-by berth. we are sorry for the misinformation!

the term sawtooth berth was found in a sept 1987 edition of busway when discussing about new new bt batok int. therefore sawtooth berth is a correct usage of phrase.

ZYX