Comfort on a minibus can be addressed in a variety of ways. Wider seating trimmed in the right material, a properly restrained wheelchair and a suitable passenger restraint all count towards making a passenger more comfortable. These aspects should be considered when specifying seat types and wheelchair provision.
One of the key areas to providing Comfort on a minibus usually means providing ventilation and a means of controlling the temperature.
Ventilation on a minibus is provided by opening windows and roof vents.
There is no minimum standard for ventilation and so on a basic minibus only the cab windows provide any circulation of air.
For many customer types additional ventilation is seen as a necessity, but the number and type of windows or vents needs to be considered and should form part of your specification.
Sliding windows may be specified but please note that positions vary from model to model. Usually if having sliders it would be a pair opposite each other.
Coach style roof vents come various shapes and sizes but the two most commonly used are: 900x500 and 500x500. The 900x500 can double up as the emergency exit on a minibus.
If no roof vent is specified on a minibus - that is an M2 category vehicle - you will have a fixed glass panel in the roof to form one of the emergency exits. If the minibus is a conversion then you may as well make that an opening vent.
There are various other types of vent – fixed, spinning and electric which may all be specified either on their own or in conjunction with sliding windows and coach style roof vents.
The standard base vehicle heating system can provide heat to the whole vehicle. That said, due to the volume of air in a large vehicle it would take a long time for the passenger at the rear of the vehicle to feel any benefit.
Additional heating may be specified in the form of diesel fired heaters. These provide heating which is independent of the base vehicle system.
Various power outputs are available the most suitable of which is determined by the size of the vehicle and the frequency of opening and closing doors.
In addition to ventilation and heating it is possible to add air conditioning. Whilst it can be prohibitively expensive, a system appropriate for the size of the vehicle can provide the same cooling function found in a modern car. However please note: Systems come with differing capabilities. A unit suitable for a mini will not be adequate for a full size 17 seat minibus.
If the unit is not of a sufficient size, at the source you will feel cold air but it will not have the capacity to reduce the temperature to the whole vehicle.
The difference between having cold air at source versus providing a specific temperature throughout the vehicle extends to thousands. If that does sound prohibitively expensive then consider adding forms of ventilation at a less expensive alternative
