Development, Construction and Testing of An Articulated Trolley-Bus With a Two-Axle Drive

From the technical point of view, trolley-buses are as mature as diesel-powered vehicles. The peculiarities of the electric drive must be taken into account with respect to the dimensioning and design of the drive train. The electric motor has a high torque, especially at low engine speeds. Because of this and due to consideration not only for the safety of standing passengers but also for the necessary adhesion coefficient, it is often necessary to use electronic control systems to limit the acceleration. If therefore only one axle were driven in a three-axle articulated bus with a permissible c.v.w. of 26 t, it would often not be possible to make full use of the torque characteristic as this could lead, on winter roads and under difficult topographical conditions, to a spinning of the drive wheels of this axle. The implementation of a multiple axle drive enables a considerable improvement of the traction characteristics and driving behaviour to be achieved. This paper presents a description of the realisation of a trolley-bus concept with two driving axles.