Today (20th August) marks the first day a China made citybus is on revenue service in Singapore, with SMRT Buses. Low entry, powered by Cummins ISLe 8.9-liter engine, this bus is fully built in China and shipped as a integral unit.

There were some initial points to be taken, so I rated them on the basis of ten.

Performance: 8/10. Cummins engine, powerful on the horsepower band but on the losing start; the torque band. With an advertised 1020Nm it just cannot beat the Mercedes Benz OC500LE in terms of acceleration.
Ride Comfort: 8/10. Ride suspension just feels like a Mercedes Benz O405, stiff but not vibrating when going over humps and drops.
Interior cooling: 7/10. Aircon is sufficient in the forward sections of the bus, but there is lesser wind at the rear.
Interior color: 7/10. Colors are the usual white and grey, but added with green at the lower aircon duct. Not too inspiring.
Seat comfort: 7/10. Big seats and comfortable in that way. But they act more like suction cups.

Total: 37/50.

Some photos to go with.

From the last row of the bus. There are 1+4+24 seats to race for. The last row only contain 4 seats due to radiator intrusion and bigger seats.

The front vestibule of the bus. Two wheelchair cushions with seatbelts, a modern standard adopted by SMRT Buses.

It was difficult to catch this guy (on sensors) in action. Perhaps a top secret project?

Rear-quarter view shows Adblue and Diesel ports. Radiator and access panel are on the right side too.

There were some stuff to note on the dashboard as well. Before alighting at Bedok Interchange on the afternoon trip, I noted that the speedometer has a highest available reading of 140 km/h, the highest speed indicator on citybuses here so far. The tachometer is a usual 0 to 3000 RPM. Fuel was slightly above 1/2, water temperature about 90 degrees. The CAN System screen indicates the postition of bus doors, similar to Mercedes Benz and MAN integral system screens. The mileage is at 2073 kilometers. Fuel consumption is at a rather amazing number… 99L/100km.

This China product definitely does not disappoint me on my first ride… Enjoy your stay here SMB135E.

Add-on: Reviews by other folks in the community;
FS: http://offservice.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/smrt-yutong-2/
Mark: http://thecoloursofmyworld.blogspot.com/2009/08/review-smrts-yutong-zk6126hgc.html

Tags: China, SCR, SMRT Buses, Yutong

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 20:24 and is filed under Buses, Public Transport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.