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The Superbus (Fig. 1) is a new public transport vehicle designed for comfortable, flexible and sustainable transportation. The Superbus, which drives at 250 km/h cruising speed on its dedicated infrastructures (the supertrack) and at conventional speed on existing roads, is safe, sustainable, and able to transport passengers and goods from point to point. In this paper the philosophy of the vehicle will be highlighted in terms of the vehicle fundamental concepts. Then, the analysis of the required personal space design will be discussed alongside the design criteria for accessibility. Finally, the layout of the vehicle will be described in its details.

The Superbus is a new vehicle for collective transport that travels safely and comfortably at high speeds and with good handling. The vehicle is 15m long, 1.65 m high, weighs 9 ton and carries 23 passengers plus the driver. The suspension system has been specifically designed with the aim to provide a good compromise between comfort and handling for the specific operational characteristic of the Superbus. The vehicle travels at high seed (250 kph cruising speed) on dedicated infrastructures and at conventional speeds on existing roads. Therefore the range of operational driving conditions has enforce a new design which uses a double wishbone design, adaptive dampers and an hydraulic lifting systems which varies the height of the vehicle from 70mm to 400mm from the ground. Thought the design phase a number of vehicle dynamics analyses have been performed, which showed that the Superbus is a safe vehicle to drive at high speeds and that is very comfortable.

Sustainable mobility in all its aspects is the philosophy of the Superbus (Fig 1), which is a new concept for public transport that consists of a new vehicle, new infrastructure and new logistics. The Superbusproject is a project started by the chair AeroSpace for Sustainable Engineering and Technology (ASSET) of the Delft University of Technology (Tu Delft) in the Netherlands. The project is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Transport and Water Management and other sponsors with the aim to prove the feasibility of the concept. Sustainable mobility does not only relate to the environmental impact (global warming, CO2 and NOx emissions, etc), but also to the use of infrastructure and the impact of infrastructure on the environment, the safety of passengers and pedestrians, and the effective utilization of he system through its logistics.

The Superbus was introduced as one of the option for the Zuiderzeelijn, a fast connection between Amsterdam and Groningen and resulted to be the best option; the others being three different types of high speed train and the magnetic levitation train. In order evaluate the feasibility of its implementation, the Dutch Ministry of Transport and Water Management has decided to fund the realization of a demonstrator. The Superbus is sustainable, fast, lightweight, and appealing and transports passengers and goods from point to point and drives at high speed (250 km/h) on its dedicated and relatively cheap infrastructure. The Superbus is 15 meter long, 2.5 m wide, 1.6m high and weighs less than 9 ton when fully loaded. The vehicle has to be able to brake or avoid an obstacle (detected by the navigation and control system) within a distance of 240m. Alongside that, static and dynamic loading conditions have rendered the structural design targets very demanding.

In this paper the structural design and the manufacturing aspects of the Superbus (Fig. 1) are presented. First the major aspects of the structural design are described alongside with the FEM model utilized. Then the materials utilized will be highlighted. Finally, the manufacturing of the various parts, namely chassis, bodywork and glazing will be described.

Vehicle handling and stability are very important at high speeds especially when the vehicle has a weight of about 6 times a normal luxury passenger car as in the case of the Superbus which travels at 250kph. In this paper the high speed performance of the Superbus will be analyzed. First the model will be discussed. Then, a number of the several analyses that were carried out will be discussed. These include single lane change and steering impulse. The simulations were done with a complete multibody model made in ADAMS, which accounts for all the major non-linearity's of the actual vehicle, such as air springs and shock curves, suspension bump stops and Pacjeka tire model [1]. The results of these analyses show that the Superbus is a safe vehicle to drive at high speeds and still can be very comfortable.