Blowing HOT and COLD
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To Offer Comfort Comparable to the Private Car, Bus and Coach Operators Should Use One or Other of the Heating . and Ventilating Systems NowReadily
Available to the Coachbuilder
By Toni Walkerley
IN this day and age, when competition, though closely controlled, is probably tougher than it has ever been in the past 30 years, bus and coach designers must offer convenience and comfort on a par with personal transport.• The operator would presumably wish to postpone the evil day when his customers reject him in favour of a family car. It is only by providing a public • service cheaper .and more convenient than the car that he is likely to have his wish
fulfilled. .
So far as cost is concerned, the bus and coach operator holds most of the cards. The expense of running a car is by no means confined to the cost of the fuel it uses and the tax and insurance necessary to put it on the road. Motorists who calculate their costs in the manner that an accountant would calculate them have been known to wilt visibly. The fare for a bus-ride of a mile or two is certainly less than the cost of running a car over the same distance.
As to the convenience of the local bus service, that is largely a question of luck, influenced by the number of people who find it useful. In this matter, there may well be justification for personal transport—at a price.
Comfort, however, is something which the bus and coach can offer,
and frequently do. The quality of the seating, upholstery and genera! furnishing of the current luxury coach is of a standard that puts it right out of the class of the normal, medium-priced car. It is of the standard achieved only by Pullman trains and the international airlines. It costs a great deal of money. The finish of the service bus is, naturally enough, rather more austere, but it has come a long way from the slatted seats of the char-a-bane.
To provide luxurious seating, wide all-round vision, plenty of legand head-room and an acceptable level of noise are things that coachbuilders find relatively easy. To keep the customers warm in winter and cool in summer, and at all times of the year protect them from draughts is another problem, and one not too easy to solve. large glazed area. The modern 30-ft.-long coach has a capacity of about 1,650 cu. ft. of air. It frequently has some people who like all the• windows shut and others who prefer them open. The coach will probably be used for touring, in which case the ambient air will be extremely chilly on the tops of Alps and uncomfortably warm in the sun-drenched valleys. To achieve a happy compromise under all these conditions is anything but simple.
Full air-conditioning, in which air circulating through a saloon is kept at a constant, though adjustable, temperature, without draughts, is a system which has not yet entirely commended itself to British manufacturers.
For one thing the ideal result can be achieved only by having all the windows sealed—and everyone knows what the British feel about that Moreover, for some people a modest 60 E is a pleasing temperature: for others it is unbearably hot. En an air-conditioned low-pressure vessel, which is what the coach becomes, it is not possible to vary temperatures for individual passengers,