8 ms·

The Torsus Praetorian 4×4 school bus (2020)

32 points by app4soft 5y ago

fnord77 5y ago
this looks like a rendering. how is it "here" ?
gnabgib 5y ago
There are no photos (article seems to include only renders), and no easy way to get a sense of scale. But if this is really designed for children: What about ingress and egress? Using the one measurement: "14.4 inches of ground clearance".. the first ladder-step is 16-18" off the ground, with the second being perhaps a little closer.. maybe 15" above (this is just a guestimate from the images). There are no obvious hand holds. It's not clear if the bottom of the door ends at the metal/bumper divide or in the bumper section (possibly the small orange light is on the door), but perhaps the door provides a small amount of climbing assistance (on one side only). How is a small child, someone not particularly agile, or even someone later in life going to board (climbing?) or exit (jump?) this thing? Especially with cargo? It's strange they mention the decoration on the seats, but not how it could actually be used. Update: The Torus website[0] (which this article (by way of a another by Auto Express) just seems to be printing a press releases from) goes into a bit more detail, there is a mid-body door which can optionally have a pneumatic pop-out step, which will improve things (it's still a steep decline - would children be expected to board here too?) Only renders there too. Auto Express estimates the bus approximately costs an eye watering $475K USD [0]: https://torsus.eu/en/praetorian/school-bus https://torsus.eu/en/praetorian/school-bus
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  They have other Torsus buses that are basically the same vehicle, I'm sure you can find some. > How is a small child, someone not particularly agile, or even someone later in life going to board (climbing?) or exit (jump?) this thing? Especially with cargo? "With assistance and some modest level of risk", I'd imagine.
- bitwize 5y ago
  A lot of buses, both school and commercial, come with extra equipment to help people board. If this thing is to be outfitted as a school bus, presumably it would have extra steps or a ramp or something as an add-on.
- consp 5y ago
  > "14.4 inches of ground clearance".. the first ladder-step is 16-18" I would be less concerned with in/egress but more with dead kids due to them getting under the bus. There is a reason most busses (and trucks) in countries with proper road laws have required ground clearance shielding on all large vehicles to avoid people getting under them and being driven over. This is a massive step back in that respect and idiotic for a non existent usecase since the kids will be brought to a school which is closed anyway due to every other person not being there. edit: and I mean this for all the other 360 days of the year since it won't be in the shed and only come out for snowy days.
ekidd 5y ago
It's a fun looking piece of equipment, but it costs at least twice what a ordinary, brand new school bus costs. And as other posters point out, school buses see a lot of miles during their lifetimes. In the northern US, excluding Alaska, I _think_ that most school districts try to keep snow days (cancelations) under 5/year, and the average is lower. I doubt it would make sense to pay at least twice as much for buses in order to allow schools to open 3 to 5 more days per year. How many districts in the world see enough snow days to make this worthwhile?
- masklinn 5y ago
  This looks like a marketing stunt and little more. Places where you'd need to use an off-road school bus, the density would probably be too low for a bus to make sense at all.
- zardo 5y ago
  Cities that would get snow locked often tend to operate a snow plow fleet.
- bagacrap 5y ago
  And a lot of kids don't even take the bus anyway, nor do staff, so I don't see how this helps eliminate snow days, but yeah this is mostly an ad
joebob42 5y ago
Remote learning may not be perfect, but to the extent we truly need to "end all snow days", it seems like it should be sufficient, no?
- rdtwo 5y ago
  Remote “learning” is worthless for most kids. Just more work for adults than nothing at all
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
The bus isn't the problem. They use school busses in all sorts of vocational environments (e.g oil field) that can be characterized as "mud pit". The (typically) elderly driver and insane parents who screech about safety at the mere hint of a dusting are the problem.
- bitwize 5y ago
  Where do you live? Snow is common enough throughout nearly the entire northern half of the lower 48 that "the mere hint of a dusting" is not enough to call a snow day. Where I grew up in the northeast, it practically took a whiteout before they would call school off.
acchow 5y ago
> A 6.9-liter turbodiesel inline-six engine sends 290 horsepower and 848 pound-feet of torque Seems a bit anachronistic in 2022, no? If you want a ton of power and torque, why wouldn't you go electric?
- FastEatSlow 5y ago
  The school districts/bus company would have to install electric chargers, which while could come out cheaper overall, is still a tougher sell than a standard engine.
- azth 5y ago
  Long term reliability and maintenance costs need to be proven.
  - acchow 5y ago
    How do you prove the long-term reliability of a new engine design? An electromagnetic motor and drivetrain is incredibly simple
    - userbinator 5y ago
      Don't forget the batteries... which are not known to work well in low temperatures.
    - azth 5y ago
      Testing, and time. Whether we like it or not, diesel engines are used for many heavy duty applications, such as trucks, generators, etc.
nimbius 5y ago
disclosure: I am a diesel mechanic and i work on large commuter busses as well. Do you want the money to go to schools and learning, or opulently thumbing your nose to kris kringle two or three days a year. I thought remote learning had basically axed the snow day anyway...a few big issues: 0. you cannot load a child onto a vehicle thats 2 feet off the ground. 1. most school bus drivers in the US dont have a CDL. now try to find one willing to pilot a half million dollar all wheel nine speed with electronic transfer (while screaming kids are in the back) and youll find skilled over the road drivers arent interested in this. 2. any driver you do find wants lot pay, holidays, benefits and 80k a year guaranteed. school bus drivers earn just a little more than minimum wage for about half a years work. 3. whoever you get to drive this still has an option to tell you to pound sand. most OTR long haulers or regional drivers will never drive in conditions too adverse to control the vehicle. 4. this vehicle might make it through a bad snow storm but not at a speed youre likely to enjoy. the kind of storms this thing is rated to tackle, most kids arent. 5. IF it becomes stuck, or the driver isnt competent, youve turned a regrettable snow day into a massive rescue effort that imperils dozens of kids.
- jethro_tell 5y ago
  Also, is that thing gonna pick up the front office staff, the teachers, janitors or any security staff? Food vendors for lunch programs or other supply vendors. There's so much more than just kids walking to school up hill both ways in the snow. For an area that doesn't have a lot of snow days, it's as much the operational logistics and cost of running the school during a snow day as it is getting the kids there. You have all your regular shit, plus traffic is going to move slower, because that's how it works in the snow, so people are late or have to start earlier, you have to clear enough snow (and possibly maintain that through out the day) so that there isn't a neglegent risk in injury. Most schools are pretty much right at or below capacity for staffing in a good day, let alone one where they start late with extra chores. And for all that what do you get? A bunch of kids spacing out wishing they were sledding.
  - fooqux 5y ago
    > Also, is that thing gonna pick up the front office staff, the teachers, janitors or any security staff? Food vendors for lunch programs or other supply vendors. Of course not, but they're adults who are expected to put their lives and personal property on the line and drive into work anyway. Just look at how few snow days college staff get, or any other "non-essential" worker. Or the workplace that says "safety first" but still expects you to hit to highway in a foot of snow.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bitwize 5y ago
Congratulations, Torsus, you have made simultaneously the best and worst thing ever for an eight-year-old boy. You get to ride to school in a monster truck... on days that school would've normally been cancelled.
markdown 5y ago
Looks like a Tonka or Hot Wheels toy.
fasteddie31003 5y ago
Yes please. I'll come back in 10 years to get the used version and convert it into an off-road RV.
mark-r 5y ago
Cute gimmick, but not being able to get school busses through the snow are not why schools have snow days. They do it because they don't want kinds dying of exposure while waiting at the bus stop.
- kurthr 5y ago
  Yeah, or teachers getting to school? Probably lots of reasons, including a lack of funding for expensive busses in places where it doesn't snow enough to have plows at the ready.
- mc32 5y ago
  >but not being able to get school busses through the snow are not why schools have snow days. I think schools suspend class during heavy snow (definition depends on locale) but most snow days are warmer than the coldest days of winter and they do not suspend school due to "freezing days" with exceptions for extremely cold days.
frozenport 5y ago
Places like Tromsø would love this: 1. Temperatures don't get too cold, rather there is too much snow 2. Normal vehicles get stuck on non-snowdays. Its not about "snow days", its about regular operation. 3. Tons of money
mbfg 5y ago
And then came covid and did away with the snow day first, for free.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
thriftwy 5y ago
Looks like a ПАЗ with bells and whistles. https://i.artfile.ru/1920x1320_1507055_[www.ArtFile.ru].jpg https://i.artfile.ru/1920x1320_1507055_[www.ArtFile.ru].jpg
bawolff 5y ago
As someone who grew up in "northern" canada, snow days always confused me. It snowed. We went to school. We didn't get snow days.
analog31 5y ago
Obligatory mention of the Madeline Island ice sled: https://northinfocus.com/2021/02/12/a-ride-on-the-wind-sled-madeline-islands-polar-lifeline/ https://northinfocus.com/2021/02/12/a-ride-on-the-wind-sled-...
alkonaut 5y ago
I rode to school in a bus every day and some days there were a foot of snow, on a bad day more. Temps could be -30 degrees and I’d happily wait for the bus. I don’t remember a bus getting stuck once, and not one day of school being closed. The reason this worked wasn’t because the buses were 8x8 monsters or that they even had winter tyres or snow chains. These were regular buses. Often articulated ones. The reason it works is because if there is a foot of snow over night, it’s cleared by 7 am. That’s where you invest if you want to go to school all year and it snows from October to April. But for most places such as Britain, or continental Europe outside of mountain regions this isn’t an issue you’d spend money dealing with. It’s better to have a snow day now and then and put the snow plow money towards more teachers or better public transport.
DougN7 5y ago
This thing looks silly to me here in the US but reminds me a lot of the dump trucks, garbage trucks and touring vans I saw in Iceland. Now THOSE were trucks! :)
dang 5y ago
Url changed from https://www.thedrive.com/news/37235/the-torsus-praetorian-4x4-school-bus-is-here-to-end-all-snow-days https://www.thedrive.com/news/37235/the-torsus-praetorian-4x..., which points to this.
app4soft 5y ago
The Drive on Twitter: > Sorry, the Torsus Praetorian 4x4 school bus is here to end all snow days:[0] [0] https://twitter.com/thedrive/status/1484752697978990597 https://twitter.com/thedrive/status/1484752697978990597
JoeyBananas 5y ago
School buses need to last for decades. Lots of school buses have 250k+ miles on the odometer. When I was in highschool, I rode on a school bus with over 1 million miles. The thing was ancient and you could feel every gear change.
- AnotherGoodName 5y ago
  A different perspective: it's weird that school buses that only run two routes per day exist. That has to be one of the most underutiluzed forms of public transport. My home country Australia has free public transport for children. The public transport system gets kids to school and back with no issues. You don't get drivers and busses underutilized either.
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    They don't only run two routes per day; most US districts stagger elementary, middle, and high-school start times so the same busses can be used for all of those systems. (this leads to other problems with kids waking up early, ofc) > My home country Australia has free public transport for children I am not opposed to this when possible, but I'm suspicious of the implication that Australia either has (1) convenient, frequent bus service in all suburbs or (2) no suburbs. Edit: little bit of research: > The vast majority of schools in Australia (both government and private) do not have their own buses for transporting children between the school and their home and thus most school children in Australia that do travel by bus travel on public transport buses, either on standard scheduled public transport routes, or on specific 'school travel' routes. Most school routes do not allow the general adult public to ride along with the children, although this does vary by location according to practicality (i.e. remote areas) and local regulation. Ok yeah so you end up with kids-only "school routes" for a lot of public busses when public transit doesn't align, nominally within the same public transit system... cool, but that doesn't really seem completely different from the US system.
    - bitwize 5y ago
      > I am not opposed to this when possible, but I'm suspicious of the implication that Australia either has (1) convenient, frequent bus service in all suburbs or (2) no suburbs. From what I observed in Queensland... a mix of both, actually. There are suburbs, but the distance from CBD to bush is much shorter than the corresponding distance in the USA. At the same time, there is an extensive public transit network that competing private carriers participate in. The government sets routes and establishes the payment system, the carriers drive the routes and and keep prices reasonable and the service good. I was quite pleasantly surprised by Queensland's bus network.

32 points by app4soft 5y ago

this looks like a rendering. how is it "here" ?

There are no photos (article seems to include only renders), and no easy way to get a sense of scale. But if this is really designed for children: What about ingress and egress? Using the one measurement: "14.4 inches of ground clearance".. the first ladder-step is 16-18" off the ground, with the second being perhaps a little closer.. maybe 15" above (this is just a guestimate from the images). There are no obvious hand holds. It's not clear if the bottom of the door ends at the metal/bumper divide or in the bumper section (possibly the small orange light is on the door), but perhaps the door provides a small amount of climbing assistance (on one side only). How is a small child, someone not particularly agile, or even someone later in life going to board (climbing?) or exit (jump?) this thing? Especially with cargo? It's strange they mention the decoration on the seats, but not how it could actually be used. Update: The Torus website[0] (which this article (by way of a another by Auto Express) just seems to be printing a press releases from) goes into a bit more detail, there is a mid-body door which can optionally have a pneumatic pop-out step, which will improve things (it's still a steep decline - would children be expected to board here too?) Only renders there too. Auto Express estimates the bus approximately costs an eye watering $475K USD [0]: https://torsus.eu/en/praetorian/school-bus https://torsus.eu/en/praetorian/school-bus

fennecfoxen 5y ago
They have other Torsus buses that are basically the same vehicle, I'm sure you can find some. > How is a small child, someone not particularly agile, or even someone later in life going to board (climbing?) or exit (jump?) this thing? Especially with cargo? "With assistance and some modest level of risk", I'd imagine.
bitwize 5y ago
A lot of buses, both school and commercial, come with extra equipment to help people board. If this thing is to be outfitted as a school bus, presumably it would have extra steps or a ramp or something as an add-on.
consp 5y ago
> "14.4 inches of ground clearance".. the first ladder-step is 16-18" I would be less concerned with in/egress but more with dead kids due to them getting under the bus. There is a reason most busses (and trucks) in countries with proper road laws have required ground clearance shielding on all large vehicles to avoid people getting under them and being driven over. This is a massive step back in that respect and idiotic for a non existent usecase since the kids will be brought to a school which is closed anyway due to every other person not being there. edit: and I mean this for all the other 360 days of the year since it won't be in the shed and only come out for snowy days.

ekidd 5y ago

It's a fun looking piece of equipment, but it costs at least twice what a ordinary, brand new school bus costs. And as other posters point out, school buses see a lot of miles during their lifetimes. In the northern US, excluding Alaska, I _think_ that most school districts try to keep snow days (cancelations) under 5/year, and the average is lower. I doubt it would make sense to pay at least twice as much for buses in order to allow schools to open 3 to 5 more days per year. How many districts in the world see enough snow days to make this worthwhile?

masklinn 5y ago
This looks like a marketing stunt and little more. Places where you'd need to use an off-road school bus, the density would probably be too low for a bus to make sense at all.
zardo 5y ago
Cities that would get snow locked often tend to operate a snow plow fleet.
bagacrap 5y ago
And a lot of kids don't even take the bus anyway, nor do staff, so I don't see how this helps eliminate snow days, but yeah this is mostly an ad

joebob42 5y ago

Remote learning may not be perfect, but to the extent we truly need to "end all snow days", it seems like it should be sufficient, no?

rdtwo 5y ago
Remote “learning” is worthless for most kids. Just more work for adults than nothing at all

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

The bus isn't the problem. They use school busses in all sorts of vocational environments (e.g oil field) that can be characterized as "mud pit". The (typically) elderly driver and insane parents who screech about safety at the mere hint of a dusting are the problem.

bitwize 5y ago
Where do you live? Snow is common enough throughout nearly the entire northern half of the lower 48 that "the mere hint of a dusting" is not enough to call a snow day. Where I grew up in the northeast, it practically took a whiteout before they would call school off.

acchow 5y ago

> A 6.9-liter turbodiesel inline-six engine sends 290 horsepower and 848 pound-feet of torque Seems a bit anachronistic in 2022, no? If you want a ton of power and torque, why wouldn't you go electric?

FastEatSlow 5y ago
The school districts/bus company would have to install electric chargers, which while could come out cheaper overall, is still a tougher sell than a standard engine.
azth 5y ago
Long term reliability and maintenance costs need to be proven.
- acchow 5y ago
  How do you prove the long-term reliability of a new engine design? An electromagnetic motor and drivetrain is incredibly simple
  - userbinator 5y ago
    Don't forget the batteries... which are not known to work well in low temperatures.
  - azth 5y ago
    Testing, and time. Whether we like it or not, diesel engines are used for many heavy duty applications, such as trucks, generators, etc.

nimbius 5y ago

disclosure: I am a diesel mechanic and i work on large commuter busses as well. Do you want the money to go to schools and learning, or opulently thumbing your nose to kris kringle two or three days a year. I thought remote learning had basically axed the snow day anyway...a few big issues: 0. you cannot load a child onto a vehicle thats 2 feet off the ground. 1. most school bus drivers in the US dont have a CDL. now try to find one willing to pilot a half million dollar all wheel nine speed with electronic transfer (while screaming kids are in the back) and youll find skilled over the road drivers arent interested in this. 2. any driver you do find wants lot pay, holidays, benefits and 80k a year guaranteed. school bus drivers earn just a little more than minimum wage for about half a years work. 3. whoever you get to drive this still has an option to tell you to pound sand. most OTR long haulers or regional drivers will never drive in conditions too adverse to control the vehicle. 4. this vehicle might make it through a bad snow storm but not at a speed youre likely to enjoy. the kind of storms this thing is rated to tackle, most kids arent. 5. IF it becomes stuck, or the driver isnt competent, youve turned a regrettable snow day into a massive rescue effort that imperils dozens of kids.

jethro_tell 5y ago
Also, is that thing gonna pick up the front office staff, the teachers, janitors or any security staff? Food vendors for lunch programs or other supply vendors. There's so much more than just kids walking to school up hill both ways in the snow. For an area that doesn't have a lot of snow days, it's as much the operational logistics and cost of running the school during a snow day as it is getting the kids there. You have all your regular shit, plus traffic is going to move slower, because that's how it works in the snow, so people are late or have to start earlier, you have to clear enough snow (and possibly maintain that through out the day) so that there isn't a neglegent risk in injury. Most schools are pretty much right at or below capacity for staffing in a good day, let alone one where they start late with extra chores. And for all that what do you get? A bunch of kids spacing out wishing they were sledding.
- fooqux 5y ago
  > Also, is that thing gonna pick up the front office staff, the teachers, janitors or any security staff? Food vendors for lunch programs or other supply vendors. Of course not, but they're adults who are expected to put their lives and personal property on the line and drive into work anyway. Just look at how few snow days college staff get, or any other "non-essential" worker. Or the workplace that says "safety first" but still expects you to hit to highway in a foot of snow.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bitwize 5y ago

Congratulations, Torsus, you have made simultaneously the best and worst thing ever for an eight-year-old boy. You get to ride to school in a monster truck... on days that school would've normally been cancelled.

markdown 5y ago

Looks like a Tonka or Hot Wheels toy.

fasteddie31003 5y ago

Yes please. I'll come back in 10 years to get the used version and convert it into an off-road RV.

mark-r 5y ago

Cute gimmick, but not being able to get school busses through the snow are not why schools have snow days. They do it because they don't want kinds dying of exposure while waiting at the bus stop.

kurthr 5y ago
Yeah, or teachers getting to school? Probably lots of reasons, including a lack of funding for expensive busses in places where it doesn't snow enough to have plows at the ready.
mc32 5y ago
>but not being able to get school busses through the snow are not why schools have snow days. I think schools suspend class during heavy snow (definition depends on locale) but most snow days are warmer than the coldest days of winter and they do not suspend school due to "freezing days" with exceptions for extremely cold days.

frozenport 5y ago

Places like Tromsø would love this: 1. Temperatures don't get too cold, rather there is too much snow 2. Normal vehicles get stuck on non-snowdays. Its not about "snow days", its about regular operation. 3. Tons of money

mbfg 5y ago

And then came covid and did away with the snow day first, for free.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

thriftwy 5y ago

Looks like a ПАЗ with bells and whistles. https://i.artfile.ru/1920x1320_1507055_[www.ArtFile.ru].jpg https://i.artfile.ru/1920x1320_1507055_[www.ArtFile.ru].jpg

bawolff 5y ago

As someone who grew up in "northern" canada, snow days always confused me. It snowed. We went to school. We didn't get snow days.

analog31 5y ago

Obligatory mention of the Madeline Island ice sled: https://northinfocus.com/2021/02/12/a-ride-on-the-wind-sled-madeline-islands-polar-lifeline/ https://northinfocus.com/2021/02/12/a-ride-on-the-wind-sled-...

alkonaut 5y ago

I rode to school in a bus every day and some days there were a foot of snow, on a bad day more. Temps could be -30 degrees and I’d happily wait for the bus. I don’t remember a bus getting stuck once, and not one day of school being closed. The reason this worked wasn’t because the buses were 8x8 monsters or that they even had winter tyres or snow chains. These were regular buses. Often articulated ones. The reason it works is because if there is a foot of snow over night, it’s cleared by 7 am. That’s where you invest if you want to go to school all year and it snows from October to April. But for most places such as Britain, or continental Europe outside of mountain regions this isn’t an issue you’d spend money dealing with. It’s better to have a snow day now and then and put the snow plow money towards more teachers or better public transport.

DougN7 5y ago

This thing looks silly to me here in the US but reminds me a lot of the dump trucks, garbage trucks and touring vans I saw in Iceland. Now THOSE were trucks! :)

dang 5y ago

Url changed from https://www.thedrive.com/news/37235/the-torsus-praetorian-4x4-school-bus-is-here-to-end-all-snow-days https://www.thedrive.com/news/37235/the-torsus-praetorian-4x..., which points to this.

app4soft 5y ago

The Drive on Twitter: > Sorry, the Torsus Praetorian 4x4 school bus is here to end all snow days:[0] [0] https://twitter.com/thedrive/status/1484752697978990597 https://twitter.com/thedrive/status/1484752697978990597

JoeyBananas 5y ago

School buses need to last for decades. Lots of school buses have 250k+ miles on the odometer. When I was in highschool, I rode on a school bus with over 1 million miles. The thing was ancient and you could feel every gear change.

AnotherGoodName 5y ago
A different perspective: it's weird that school buses that only run two routes per day exist. That has to be one of the most underutiluzed forms of public transport. My home country Australia has free public transport for children. The public transport system gets kids to school and back with no issues. You don't get drivers and busses underutilized either.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  They don't only run two routes per day; most US districts stagger elementary, middle, and high-school start times so the same busses can be used for all of those systems. (this leads to other problems with kids waking up early, ofc) > My home country Australia has free public transport for children I am not opposed to this when possible, but I'm suspicious of the implication that Australia either has (1) convenient, frequent bus service in all suburbs or (2) no suburbs. Edit: little bit of research: > The vast majority of schools in Australia (both government and private) do not have their own buses for transporting children between the school and their home and thus most school children in Australia that do travel by bus travel on public transport buses, either on standard scheduled public transport routes, or on specific 'school travel' routes. Most school routes do not allow the general adult public to ride along with the children, although this does vary by location according to practicality (i.e. remote areas) and local regulation. Ok yeah so you end up with kids-only "school routes" for a lot of public busses when public transit doesn't align, nominally within the same public transit system... cool, but that doesn't really seem completely different from the US system.
  - bitwize 5y ago
    > I am not opposed to this when possible, but I'm suspicious of the implication that Australia either has (1) convenient, frequent bus service in all suburbs or (2) no suburbs. From what I observed in Queensland... a mix of both, actually. There are suburbs, but the distance from CBD to bush is much shorter than the corresponding distance in the USA. At the same time, there is an extensive public transit network that competing private carriers participate in. The government sets routes and establishes the payment system, the carriers drive the routes and and keep prices reasonable and the service good. I was quite pleasantly surprised by Queensland's bus network.