VEHICLE DESIGN, SPECIFICATION AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Transportation Alternatives created the U.S.-Slovene joint venture company, TAM-USA, which designed, marketed and sold a 12-meter monocoque school bus and 12-meter luxury tour coach for the U.S. market. TA also prepared vehicle specifications for the City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation, other municipalities and private contract operators. TA also conducted a two-day technical workshop on Preparing Vehicle Specifications to Los Angeles County transit agencies and municipalities for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Vehicle Design: School Bus

As its first TAM-USA project, TA coordinated the design and development of a 40-foot, monocoque school bus for the North American market. Product development involved the full spectrum of activities including design, engineering, prototype development, testing, certification, marketing and sales. TAM-USA prepared Product Acceptance Standards, advised TAM-BUS and AM-BUS on the selection and purchasing of U.S. componentry, and defined and supervised the conduct of both road testing and certification to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. While only the tour coach effort was commercially successful, the school bus project had a profound impact on the school bus industry, and the vehicle's many innovations (e.g., ABS brakes, "out-board" pneumatic suspension systems, retractable headlight panels, etc.) were replicated by their later inclusion in other U.S.-manufactured school buses.

In its efforts to integrate a full range of U.S. componentry into a European commercial vehicle envelope, TA formed and directed the efforts of an interdisciplinary User Design Committee comprised of four state directors of pupil transportation (California, Washington, Arizona and Texas), local school district transportation directors, senior officials from the nation's five largest private school bus contractors (Laidlaw, Ryder, Mayflower, VANCOM, Durham), directors of both the public and private sector school bus industry "umbrella" organizations (NAPT and NSTA), the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, and the National Safety Council. These individuals interacted throughout the design effort with engineers and marketing experts from TAM-USA, TAM-BUS and AM-BUS (TAM's body maker). For both its School/Activity Bus and Luxury Tour Coach, TAM-USA coordinated the engineering efforts of technical and applications engineers in six countries (United States, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, France and Slovenia).

The TAM School/Activity Bus contained a litany of unique standard features never before available in a school bus of any kind:

This bus was also available with a number of options also never before offered in a school bus, including:


Vehicle Design: Tour Coach

The TAM 260 Luxury Tour Coach was conceived as a niche market product also never before available in the North American market: A full-size, heavy-duty, monocoque luxury tour coach relying upon a single rear axle. This unusual approach translated into significantly lower capital and operating costs, delivering an astonishing fuel efficiency of 10 miles per gallon--fully loaded. By employing a heavy-duty (rather than "heavy-heavy-duty") 8.3 liter 275 horsepower Cummins engine (with 750 foot-pounds of torque),and a proportionally-sized ZF transmission and McCord cooling system, and the vehicle's weight on the rear axle, when fully loaded, permitted the coach to achieve a top speed of 65 mph. with 44 passengers and their baggage (stored in 240 cu. ft. of pass-through undercarriage luggage compartments and 100 cu. ft. of interior package racks).

The coach also contained virtually every luxury feature of other European or U.S./Canadian-manufactured tour coaches, including restroom, VCR system with multiple monitors, aircraft type air conditioning and interior lighting system with individual passenger controls, reclining seats, coat closet, tour guide seat (optional), mini-refrigerator and full carpeting and window curtains.

While TAM-USA immediately sold the first dozen coaches ordered (they continue to operate in California, Nevada, Ohio and Florida), the parent company disintegrated in the aftermath of Slovenia's privatization efforts following its independence from Yugoslavia and loss of ex-Yugoslav markets.

For a detailed description of the TAM 260 Tour Coach, see TAM 260: The New Coach for the Economical and Small Market Niche. For additional information about TAM products and the projects associated with them, see:

For a concise chronology of the TAM-USA project, see Make Way...Slovenia Coming Through in East European Investment Magazine, September, 1993.

Integration and Export of U.S. Components

Both models of TAM buses introduced into the U.S. market contained a full range of U.S. components--including a large number produced by multi-national corporations whose products were supported in the international market (Cummins, Rockwell, Bosch, Bendix, Romeo Rim, etc.). To help TAM-BUS and AM-BUS comply with Federal (U.S.) axle weight limitations, and to lower the parent manufacturers' production costs by taking advantage of differences in currency exchange rates, TA prepared both a Weight Reduction Plan and an extensive list of U.S. and Canadian components which would collectively reduce TAM-BUS's production costs by 12 percent. As a result of this research, and TAM-BUS's experiences with U.S. componentry in the TAM-USA projects, TAM-BUS produced a nine-meter luxury tour coach relying on a U.S. engine and drive train which it sold to buyers in Russia, Israel, Croatia and Slovenia. In addition to balancing TAM-USA's import activities with export counterparts involving the same suppliers and commercial relationships (and offsetting higher costs for imported EU components with lower-cost SAE counterparts), this effort helped "push" Rockwell rear axles, Cummins engines and Power Star (Canadian) shock absorbers into new markets in Eastern and Central Europe and the Middle East.

Vehicle Specifications and Product Acceptance Standards

Beginning with and subsequent to the TAM-USA project, TA has prepared a number of product acceptance standards and technical specifications for both monocoque and body-on-chassis buses and coaches. These included the preparation of detailed technical specifications for a 50-bus order of 30-foot transit buses for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, several variations of technical specifications for models of the TAM 252 and 260 buses and coaches, and specifications for several municipalities and private contractors.

Presentation of Workshops on Vehicle Design and Specification

As part of its 15-subject curriculum on specialized transportation for disabled persons, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority hired TA to conduct a two-day workshop on the preparation of technical specifications for paratransit vehicles. This workshop was attended by representatives from transit agencies and municipalities within Los Angeles County. In addition, TA has made presentations related to fuel cell and battery-powered buses to Northrop Corporation, International Fuel Cells and H-Power Corporation. In the early stages of the development of its Advanced Technology Transit Bus (ATTB) project, Northrop Corporation solicited a proposal from TA to examine opportunities to export the vehicle and its high-technology elements to bus purchasers, other manufacturers and suppliers in the international market.

See also: