The bus segment is driving much of the growth in the commercial vehicle segment in India. Both the city and luxury bus markets seem to show very positive growth trend, and most of the bus body builders have their order books full for the whole year. But there is flipside to this growth. In India, the chassis is manufactured by vehicle manufacturers like Ashok Leyland, Tata Motors, Eicher Motors and Swaraj Mazda, while bus bodies are built by independent builders.
Till recently, there were no regulations governing the design and building of bus bodies. The bus body building industry is still highly unorganised, and barring a handful of companies, bus manufacturers don’t have design and engineering capabilities. They don’t also have the requisite infrastructure in-house to build bus bodies adhering to safety standards.
But this industry will witness a total revamp with the proposed implementation in April next of the Automotive Industrial Standard (AIS) 052 for Bus Body Building, also known as the Bus Code. This will be done in two steps. The first phase would involve establishment of the Bus Body Accreditation System and the second involves compliance of the bus body to the Safety Standard AIS 052 (Code of Practice for Bus Body Design and Approval).
ARAI, which is a premier testing and certification agency and which also provides the technical secretariat for establishing automotive standards, has evolved the code that seeks to standardize bus body building in the country. Under the new set of rules, bus body builders in the organised and unorganised sectors would be required to build coaches whose designs meet the safety standards set by the ARAI.
As for the first phase related to the system for accreditation of bus body builders, the Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways has already notified the scheme for accreditation. Accordingly, with effect from April 2008, all body builders have been asked to apply for accreditation of their facility and capability to build buses. The accreditation is intended to ensure that they have the required infrastructure and capability to design and build buses.
The National Accreditation Board set up for the purpose will be responsible for inspecting these bus body building units through the four Zonal Boards and to grant accreditation to body builders.
CIRT, in co-ordination with ARAI, has already conducted workshops to educate bus body building units on the Bus Code. A body builder should at least have design and development facility, fabrication components, seat assemblies and inspection and testing facilities to qualify for accreditation. CIRT and ARAI have been appointed Secretariat for the Zonal Boards.
The OE vehicle manufacturer or the body builder will subsequently have to obtain a type approval certificate from the testing agencies referred to in Rule 126 of CMVR. Individual buses would be certified for compliance to the specifications laid down by the authorized third party evaluators working under the panel of experts. This procedure, while allowing flexibility of operation, will have sufficient check points for compliance to the prescribed standards and the Safety Code of Practice all over the country.
The second phase relates to the implementation of the Bus Code. The "Code of Practice for Bus Body Design and Approval', published as a separate standard, AIS - 052, primarily covers requirements related to dimensions/outline specifications for bus bodies, especially with regard to structural integrity, passenger entry/exit and safety parameters, seats, etc. AIS - 052 is available on the website of ARAI.
As in any other developing economy, in India safety measures for buses have till now not received the importance they deserve. With the entry of global bus manufacturers like Volvo and Mercedes and with Indian manufacturers like Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland getting aggressive in this segment, a lot of importance is now attached to the design and quality of buses as well as the safety and comfort of passengers.
The Bus Code for bus body designs and approval will make it compulsory for body builders to adopt safety norms while building bodies. The Code also classifies buses into city, inter-city, school and long-distance buses, and manufacturers would be required to follow the norms while building vehicle bodies to ensure safety standards.
The Bus Code was first designed in 2001. The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, had requested the CMVR – Technical Standing Committee to frame requisite guidelines on Standardisation of the Bus and Truck Body. A sub-committee was formed under Mr. A.S. Lakra, former Director of CIRT, to look into various aspects of bus body designing.
ARAI was involved in the making of the Bus Code with the other stakeholders like SIAM, ASRTU, etc., as there was a need to draw suitable guidelines keeping in view the best Indian practices and desired practices, as are followed in Europe. This report, submitted to the Ministry in 2001, was approved by the Transport Development Council. It is essential that the facilities for testing and evaluating fully-built buses are available with all the testing agencies, so that the requirements of the entire bus body building industry could be taken care of.
To begin with, ARAI would support the industry in developing bus designs for adoption by body builders. These designs would take into account all features of a bus, right from construction material to the design of the driver's seat. The main features that would be standardized in all future bus designs would be service doors, emergency exits, steps (number and dimensions), floor height, gangway, hand rails and holds, driver and co-driver seat, passenger seat layout and dimensions, standee passenger area, fuel tanks and bumpers.
The existing bus body structures are hardly design optimal and safe. The cabin and seats have cramped designs that do not provide safety and comfort to the driver. Body designs cause extreme heat, vibration and noise and provide little protection. Mostly wood is being used in bus construction. Of late, some reputed body builders have brought in improved bus designs. Still a lot more has to be done. There is also a need to evaluate the structural design of a bus body by Finite Element Analysis for assessment of the element displacements, structural stiffness, safe passenger survival space, etc., under various loading conditions and their conformance to specified values.
The bus code will of course help organise the bus body building business. While body builders with strong infrastructure and highly developed design capabilities will be greatly benefited, implementation of the Bus Code will also lead to the elimination of small players as in any other industry that undergoes transformation.
