Buses have been main means of mass transport in organized as well as unorganized sectors in India. Though the art and science of Chassis Designing had been practiced and matured by all Indian OEMs, Body design had long not been accorded high priority by them. Till 1989, there was no comprehensive set of rules enforced. Bus designs were developed with scant regard for safety and emission. OEMs sold their products in the form of drive away chassis and the Body Design & Body Building was largely left to Body Builders, many of whom employed poor design, build and quality control practices. Spurious materials, parts, non-uniform construction resulted in number of accidents and many of them were fatal.
Central Motor Vehicle Rules (CMVR) kicked-in 1st July 1989. With roll out of CMVR, various safety related features like entry/exit door, emergency exits, window frames, their locations, dimensions and designs were defined. Stability and strength evaluations of the bus body, seat anchorages, and roll over test for the full body got promulgated. [Reference 7]
Bus Code Publishing (2008), Bus Code Notification (Apr 2014), Body Builder Accreditation (Apr 2013), MoUD Specs JnNURM-I and JnNURM-II (2013) are major milestones which went long way in enhancing customer experience and safety. All OEMs responded extremely positively by contributing in formulating those rules and also designing newer products to meet them.
Drivers summing up “Evolution of bus design in India”
This paper discusses in detail the advances in bus design in terms of Safety, Emission, Driver & Passenger comfort etc