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-   -   KSRTC to start Airavat Diamond Class Service (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/commercial-vehicles/165335-ksrtc-start-airavat-diamond-class-service-3.html)

Good initiative by KSRTC , with some thought towards passenger safety as well . If only they can get their drivers to wear seatbelts, it would complete the picture!

Happened to travel in a SCANIA. Nothing extraordinary 'diamond class' over a Volvo.From the pictures it looks like the same one. Hope the passengers are not overcharged on the pretext of some black box/hammers/better than Volvo gimmicks.

Those are not gimmicks any more than ABS and a crumple zone for a car are. If you haven't ever been seated in a bus where the driver was caught drunk driving, or that had a fire develop in its luggage compartment, just thank your stars and move on.

You will realize how crucial the hammer is when the bus meets with an accident and the front doors are jammed, with all the passengers inside trying to find a way to come out.. After the 2 tragedies last year or so, now buses have mandatory emergency doors at the rear but 2 years back the situation was different. Most private operators compromise safety for a few extra bucks and used to do away with the emergency exit. Many private volvos, even now, do not have driver doors, so you have only 1 exit in a bus carrying close to 50 passengers. and God forbid, if there is a frontal crash, the door gets jammed. How do you get out of the glass box then?

I have faced this in an SRS crash from Bangalore - Trivandrum and realized how tough it is to break the glasses without a hammer!

Hammers have to be an absolute MUST on buses - obviously no one can charge more because the buses have more hammers !

I agree that a manual shifter is not present, but a manual mode switch is present same as in i-Shift in a Volvo.
While I came from Ankola to Pune in a SRS new batch Scania, I had a brief chat with the driver. I will state his views here.

1. Optocruise mode more suitable for Blr- Mumbai route than Manglore Mumbai route. If driven in that mode and speed lock of 85kmph, bus achieves 3.2 kmpl.
2. He was driving in a manual mode, bus was speed locked at 100kmph. he was getting 2.9kmpl for whole trip. If driven in Optocruise mode at this speed, the mileage reduces to 2.3- 2.4 kmpl.

Cheers
AB

A manual selector is present as a part of the AL Leymatic and Volvo i-Shift. A higher mileage in Manual mode depends entirely on the driver's skill. Opticruise is based on preset algorithms, that read the vehicle speed, engine load, rpm and accelerator pedal position to choose the best gear ratio at that point. A driver who can anticipate overtakes and knows the route, can shift accordingly to achieve maximum FE. You can read more about AMTs in this thread.

What you say about preset algorithms and feedbacks is correct for automatic mode. For manual mode clarification, please find attached press room release document from Scania.
Also we can find detailed info at
http://newsroom.scania.com/en-group/...-luxury-coach/

Source: scania.com, P11X24EN /Per-Erik Nordström 25 October 2011

Cheers
AB

1. Road conditions in India are not outstanding. Animals crossing roads are occasionally seen.
2. Most of the inter-city coaches operate at night. Although drivers are used to driving through the night even after a nice meal, the chances of dozing off momentarily in the wee hours are not exactly negligible.
3. Drunk driving is still prevalent in multiple parts of the country and law-keepers seldom do anything when it comes to inter-city coaches traveling at night.

When these points are justified by gruesome incidents (few include all passengers burnt to death) in the past 3-4 years, safety becomes a really important issue. With more foreign players setting up facilities in India, localization content going up and prices going down, I think innovative features contributing to safety, comfort and aesthetics will be the parameters to compete on in the coming days. And Scania has started on a positive note.

When it comes to charging passengers, I don't think these features will affect ticket prices, as all of these features are localized or in the process of localization. Moreover Scania has a Total Economics of Operation and competition based pricing methodology and it doesn't involve cost of bus anywhere in the calculation (even if they are making losses by selling vehicles). So no change in ticket price, until KSRTC wants to milk out more money from us!

With a 2.9kmpl mileage and cost of procurement and driver and conductor payments plus maintenance how does operators including govt afford to manage and buy newer buses? Am i missing something? i didnt add the cost of agents.

For the Mum - Blr segment itself you need 392 ltrs and at a 55Rs price, you are looking at 21500 as the running cost.

Again am i missing something?

Maddy

Well cost per seat is around 2K. Considering 36 seats it is 72K per trip. Even if you consider 50% of running cost , the operator still make 36K per trip which i would say is excellent.

Agreed there are other over heads like maintainence and commission. But even with these there is significant profit

What i don't like in KSRTC is their hard plastic head rest cover. Its impossible to sleep on this on an overnight journey. What KSRTC don't understand is that its not comfortable at all. Have written them emails on feedback on this, never got any response. Hopefully someone can reach them and tell this :)

Many other private bus uses use and throw covers like used in airlines and a cotton cloth cover.

Incidentally the DIAMOND class is priced exactly the same as the CLUB clss. I checked the prices on Bangalore Ernakulam where the 2117 service is now a Diamond service.

Apart from fuel costs, tyre costs, maintenance (which is roughly 3-4 rupees/km) the operator also has to pay for multiple state permits, registrations, road tax, insurance, driver and co-driver wages and most importantly the EMI to the finance firm for the bus. Considering all these factors an operator makes approximately 10 lakhs if he charges 800 bucks on a 600 km route. This is for multi-axle buses. Bi-axle buses like the Volvo 9100 can move the ticket price downwards as the cost of the bus itself (related to EMI paid by operator) is about 60-65% of that of a multi-axle.

10 lakhs made in what duration? 1 month? And is this turnover or profit?

Yea tyres are the biggest consumables is what i have heard with each set tyre lasts around 50K kms and costs a lakh and above to replace all 8 tyres in a multi axle volvo

Michelin tyres last 1.1 lakh to 1.2 lakh kms roughly. MRF does about 75k to 80k. The tyres are priced accordingly but still operators prefer Michelin as they have to change less often.

Also as a practice, big operators use new tyres in these long distance coaches and once they wear out they retread them and put them on short distance buses (like 12m staff or tourist) and replace the long distance coaches with newer tyres.