This week saw the annual bus and coach trade show at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre. One stand really stood out for me, and that was Belkommunmash, one of the world's biggest manufacturers of electric and trolley buses, based in Belarus. This is the first tine I have seen or heard of them at a western European trade show.
Belkommunmash did briefly gain some notoriety a few years when their trolleybus products were mentioned in the same breath as the now
cancelled Leeds trolleybus project. I think some Leeds concillors visited the Belhommunmash factory but can't find a link to it.
Belkommunmash are trading as BKM Holdings (in their words, "easier to say") and had brought with them a right hand drive version of their E420 electric bus.
The BKM approach to electric buses is on-going charging via pantograph/overhead wire and supercapacitor, gaining around 25km of range from a 6-7 minute charge, rather than the plug-in electric buses more common in the UK, which require longer charging (overnight) for a whole day on the road. Whilst this requires roadside infrastructure and some accurate parking, the amount of infrastructure required is far less than installing charging equipment for every bus in a bus garage, which in the UK is typically 100-200 buses. That's a lot of plugs!
BKM Holdings were represented at Coach & Bus 2019 by both their own staff and those of the Belarussian Embassy in London. The right hand drive E420 will be trialled in Nottingham (not sure which operator) in the near future.
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| The right hand drive E421. Modern looks reminiscent of the Wright Streetcar? |
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| The bus is wheel forward. Whilst buses such as the WF Wright Streetlite and Optare Solo rely on the driver contorting themselves round to serve passengers, in Eastern Europe a bus is more likely to be crew operated and therefore driver/passenger interaction is usually less. |
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| The wheel forward layout means the cab entry and cash tray is behind the driver. See previous blog post on the Yutong Citymaster for how this is handled with OPO buses in Skopje. |
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| Interior of mainly 2+1 seating. For a 12m bus it has very few seats, 27 in total. |
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| Curious emergency exit location, on the floor. |
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| Cab of the BKM E420 |
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| A quite amazing central display for the driver, ADL eat your heart out with all the information here. |
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| The drivers line of sight has quite an intrusive CCTV monitor. However I'm sure that can be moved..... |
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| In Belkommunmash's home market, this is an earlier body shape of the E443, articulated super capacitor trolley bus operating in Minsk, Belarus, |
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| The charging point in a Minsk bus station. Knew there'd be a value to this photo one day! It can be seen that the contact area for the pantograph on the bus is quite small so required precise docking. However this technology is increasingly been used in countries such as Poland and the Netherlands. Whilst quite large, this facility takes up much less space than individual charging points for each bus. |
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| BKM's vehicle description |
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| Rear view of the BKM E420 |
Above all else, the enthusiasm of the BKM Holdings staff stands out! Their demonstrator vehicle is a right hand drive version of a vehicle built for the
eastern Europe market where crew operation and off bus ticketing is common. Therefore a fundamental redesign of the front axis and cab layout to a more traditional British door forward design is probably necessary for wider acceptance.
However in the short term I am sure that the UK interest will be around the reliability of the vehicle and supporting infrastructure. Does the charging set up and charge time/operating time suit British city conditions? What's the risk of it running out of charge, and how easy is it to recover should that happen? Is there sufficient charge to finish a rounder then run to and from a depot, or is some depot charging equipment necessary too?
Overall, is this a viable competitor vehicle and technology to the plug-in electrics supplied by ADL/BYD and Caetano, and how does it stack up against potential competitors from Europe or China (e.g. Yutong, who must be due a UK bus breakthrough soon!). London wants a fully electric bus fleet: it will need some competition in suppliers.....
