Main article: Bus manufacturing
Early bus manufacturing grew out of carriage coachbuilding, and later out of automobile or truck manufacturers. Early buses were merely a bus body fitted to a truck chassis. This body+chassis approach has continued with modern specialist manufacturers, although there also exist integral designs such as the Leyland National where the two are practically inseperable. Specialist builders also exist and concentrate on building buses for special uses, or modifying standard buses into specialised products.
Integral designs have the advantages that they are have been well tested for strength, stability and so forth, and also are off-the-shelf. But there are, however, two incentives to use the chassis+body model. First it allows the buyer and manufacuturer both to shop for the best deal for their needs, rather than having to settle on one fixed design— the buyer can choose the body and the chassis separately. Second it is likely that over the lifetime of a vehicle (in constant service and heavy traffic) that it will get minor damage now and again, and to be able easily to replace a body panel or window etc. can vastly increase its service life and save the cost and inconvenience of removing it from service.[citation needed]
As with the rest of the automotive industry, into the 20th century bus manufacturing increasingly became globalized, with manufacturers producing buses far from their intended market to exploit labor and material cost advantages. As with the cars, new models are often exhibited by manufacturers at prestigious industry shows to gain new orders.
Transport or transportation
is the movement of people and goods from one location to another. Transport is performed by various modes, such as air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations.
Infrastructure consists of the fixed installations necessary for transport, and may be roads, railways, airways, waterways, canals and pipelines, and terminals such as airports, railway stations, bus stations, wharehouses, trucking terminals, refueling depots (including fueling docks and fuel stations) and seaports. Terminals may both be used for interchange of passengers and cargo, and for maintenance.
Vehicles traveling on these networks include vehicles of appropriate types such as automobiles, bicycles, buses, trains, trucks people, helocopters and aircraft. Operations deal with the way the vehicles are operated, and the procedures set for this purpose including financing, legalities and policies. In the transport industry, operations and ownership of infrastructure can be either public or private, depending on the country and mode.
Passenger transport may be public, where operators provide scheduled services, or private. Freight transport has become focused on containerization, although bulk transport is used for large volumes of durable items. Transport plays an important part in economic growth and globalization, but has a deteriorizing impact on the environment. While it is heavily subsidized by governments, good planning of transport is essential to make traffic flow, and restrain urban sprawl.
Preserved Mercedes-benz bus
