Jonathan Welch takes a look at the winners and runners up in the Busworld Awards 2023
Alongside the vehicles and products on display, Busworld presents a series of awards to manufacturers and suppliers, with categories encompassing design, safety, innovation, comfort and ecology. For the first time this year, Busworld also presented its Digital Awards as part of its Digital Mobility Solutions Conference, recognising that the world of coaches and buses cannot exist without all the digital solutions that contribute to making it as safe and efficient as possible.
As Marc Vanhoutte, chairman of the Busworld Awards, explained: “It was an absolutely necessary add-on to the existing Vehicle Awards and we received a lot of positive feedback on it. The signal was clear that Busworld has its eyes on the digital bus and coach transformation.”
Co-Chairman Thorsten Wagner, editor-in-chief of the German magazine ‘Bus Blickpunkt’ adds: “Digital is the future of bus and coach. It is absolutely fascinating what happens on the market and we loved to define the winners together with all the different expert jury members.”
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The Digital Awards are divided into four different categories, encompassing ‘Digital On-Board Comfort,’ covering everything from new entertainment systems to human-machine interface (HMI) solutions, ‘Digital Operational Excellence,’ ‘Digitally Enhanced Driving’ and ‘E-Mobility Management.’
Also awarded was the title of ‘Busworld Europe 2023 Innovation’ which recognised the most promising and ground-breaking innovations.
Vehicle awards: Bus
The overall winner in the bus category, winning the Grand Award Bus was the Mercedes-Benz eCitaro. Runners-up (in alphabetical order) were Anadolu Isuzu’s electric Citivolt and the lightweight Ebusco 3.0.
Recognised in specific categories with a label of excellence were the Citea New Generation from VDL in the Design category, the eCitaro in the Comfort category, Ebusco’s 3.0 in the Ecology category, and Anadolu Isuzu’s Citivolt in the category of Safety.
Vehicle awards: Coach
The overall winner of the Grand Award Coach was Setra’s impressive S 516 HDH, with (in alphabetical order) the Neoplan Tourliner L and Van Hool’s T16 Astron as runners up. Taking the Label of Excellence awards for design and ecology was Yutong’s T15E, whilst in the Comfort category, the Setra S 516 HDH and Van Hool T16 Astron shared the prize. The Setra also took the award in the Safety category.
Digital Awards
The winner in the On Board Comfort category was MAN Truck & Bus and its new Digital Cockpit with SmartSelect, which the judges said was a clear step into the HMI-future. With its ‘SmartSelect’ operation and the full integration of the new electric platform and the latest ADAS systems it helps the driver to concentrate on his/her job without irrelevant distraction. Other nominees were Actia and Navaho Technologies.
In the field of ‘Digital Operational Excellence’ the winner was Iveco Bus with ‘Iveco On Heavy Buses Digital Services.’ The platform has been designed to meet the needs of most transport operators and agencies in terms of proactive maintenance and downtime reduction with specialised KPIs and trends available on online reports, as well as remote diagnosis and programming. Protection against cyberattacks is another focus of the system, and multi-brand data management with the ‘agnostic’ telematics system is possible as well as the integration of third party apps, which judges said was the biggest reason to vote for this all-encompassing telematics system.
Other nominees were: TottUp for its ‘GPS Training Partner’ and ZF Group for SCALAR.
In the ‘Digitally Enhanced Driving’ category, which covers partially and fully autonomous vehicles and the sub technologies and tools they require, the winner was Karsan with ts autonomous e-Atak. The Turkish manufacturer has developed and produced the world’s first SAE-level 4 serial production autonomous bus, working with partner ADASTEC, a software company, to delvelop and implement the software of the autonomous vehicle and the LIDAR and sensors it requires. The fully homologated midibus has been in operation in the USA since 2021 and since 2022 in Norway.
Other nominees were Anadolu Isuzu for its ‘V2X’ system and Daimler Buses for ‘Active Drive Assist 2.’
The fourth award category was ‘E-Mobility Management’ and encompasses the wider range of systems required to operate and charge a fleet of buses in a way that saves time and money. The winner was ChargePoint/Twaice for their ‘Battery Health Package.’ The companies joined forces to create a battery analytics solution that is integrated in fleet management software and independent from single manufacturers.
Other nominees were MAN Truck & Bus for its ‘eManager’ software and Rampini for the ‘Hy4Drive’ hydrogen system.
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