Frontal crash tests are an essential element in assessing vehicle safety. They simulate a collision that occurs when the front of the bus hits another vehicle or an obstacle. In recent years, much attention has been paid to the frontal crash testing of city buses, especially after a series of accidents resulting in deaths and injuries. Unlike car manufacturers, most bus bodybuilders do not include deformation zones in their designs. The next two regulations are widely used to assess whether a structure can withstand impact loading: UNECE Regulation No. 29—United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE R29) and the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), which is more typical of car crash tests. The main goal of the research is to develop an applicable methodology for a frontal impact simulation on a city bus, considering UNECE R29 requirements for the passenger’s safety and distinctive features of the low-entry body layout. Among the contributions to current knowledge are such research results as: unlike suburban and intercity buses, city buses are characterized by lower stiffness in the event of a frontal collision, and therefore, when developing new models, it is necessary to lay deformation zones (currently absent from most city buses). Maximum deformation values in the bus front part are reached earlier for R29 (137 ms) than for most impacts tested by NCAP (170–230 ms) but have higher values: 577 mm vs. 150–250 mm for the sills tested. Such a short shock absorption time and high deformations indicate a significantly lighter front part of a low-entry and low-floor bus compared with classic layouts. Furthermore, it is unjustified to use the R29 boundary conditions of trucks to attach the bus with chains behind its frontal axe both in natural tests and appropriate finite element simulation—the scheme of fixing the city bus should be accordingly adapted and normatively revised.

Taking into account the requirements to reduce the release of harmful emissions into the environment, the EU’s environmental standards when transitioning to the Euro 7 standard in 2025 will actually lead vehicles having to operate without producing emissions in all driving situations. Carmakers believe that the new, much stricter regulations will mark the end of the internal combustion engine era. For example, in 2030, the manufacturer SEAT will cease its activities, leaving behind the Cupra brand, which will be exclusively electric in the future. This trend will apply not only to private vehicles (passenger cars), but also to utility vehicles, which is the subject of our research, namely the spatial tubular frame in the Bogdan ERCV27 garbage truck, presented in the form of a solid model. The peculiarity of the studied model is the installation of a battery block behind the driver’s cabin, causing an additional load to be placed on the spatial frame of the garbage truck, which in terms of its architecture is more like the body of a bus. During the conditions involving various modes of operation of a full-scale Bogdan ERCV27 garbage truck sample, questions about the strength and uniformity of its load-bearing spatial frame inevitably arise, which are decisive, even at the stage of designing and preparing the technical documentation. The main static load mode, which, despite its name, also covers dynamic conditions, was modeled using the appropriate coefficient k_d = 2.0. The maximum stresses on the model during the “bending” mode were 381.13 MPa before structure optimization and 270.5 MPa as a result of the improvement measures. The spatial frame mass was reduced by 4.13%. During the “torsion” mode, the maximum deformation values were 12.1–14.5 mm, which guarantees the normal operation of the aggregates and units of the truck.

There are different configurations of street and road networks in cities, which is why those transportation models that determine how effectively a public transport network is operated are different. Along with this, some transport areas may have characteristic features predetermined by the density of a street network, the intensity of individual and public traffic. The special feature of the current study is determining the operational effectiveness of dedicated lanes for public transport given a significant density of the main street and road network. Significant density is characterized by its value for the distance between adjacent intersections in the range of 150‒200 m. With such planning patterns, there is a mutual influence of the conditions of individual and public transport between adjacent intersections. An increase in the distance between intersections disrupts the stability of traffic flow through its disintegration into separate groups based on the dynamic characteristics of vehicles. A characteristic feature of the proposed procedure for evaluating the operational effectiveness of dedicated lanes is that the use of a GPS monitoring system makes it possible to relatively quickly determine the areas of the network where there are the greatest delays in movement in real time. After that, attention is focused on investigating the main factors of influence and their parameters followed by modeling. The reported results would in the future contribute to devising a clear sequence of transport-related research based on a set of their methods in order to acquire representative data and define adequate patterns. An important practical result is the use of not only established normative approaches to the design of dedicated lanes, which are common for all types of street and road networks but taking into consideration the peculiarities characteristic of their individual sections.

The present paper is aimed at improving minimization methods in traffic flows, particularly reducing the costs of civil transportation through sections of the transport network by giving priority to public transport in densely developed areas. In cities with a radial and radial–circular planning scheme of the road network, where arterial traffic flows converge in the central part, the challenge of street congestion with traffic often arises. As a result, delays of all types of vehicles increase, which causes excessive travel time for users of private and public transport. In this regard, it is proposed to divide the sections of the transport network into eight types based on their geometric parameters and traffic conditions. This differentiation of sections improves the existing methods for determining the spatial delay of traffic flows on sections of the transport network with different parameters. It was achieved by considering the duration of vehicles passing signalized intersections and pedestrian crosswalks and the sections of streets between them, while simultaneously recording the duration of public transport movement, as well as the time they spend at stopping points, using GPS receivers. The results of onsite monitoring and further computations revealed that there are particular urban sections with specific, different distances between adjacent stop lines that are critical for public transport operation. Furthermore, based on the delay criterion, there were three different passage modes proposed to improve the efficiency of the traffic.

The object of this study is the pneumatic system in the spring suspension of rolling stock under conditions of high-speed movement from 170 to 250 km/h. Based on the thermodynamic model of the pneumatic spring suspension system, the influence of volume of the additional tank and the initial pressure in the pneumatic spring on the nature of change in the spring's dynamic stiffness, energy losses, and damping coefficient was studied. Based on the built "force-deformation" dependences for the pneumatic spring, it was established that the change in the volume of an additional tank has a slight effect on the deformation of the pneumatic spring at different speeds of the high-speed rolling stock. It was established that in the range of rolling stock speeds of 170–250 km/h, the diameter of the connecting pipeline is 30 mm, and the volume of the additional tank is from 30 to 60 l, the maximum change in the dynamic stiffness of the pneumatic spring up to 15.5 % occurs at the pressure in the spring of 6.5 bar. Dependences of energy loss and damping coefficient during the operating cycle of the pneumatic spring suspension system were derived. It was established that an increase in the volume of the additional tank and the initial pressure in the pneumatic spring leads to an increase in the energy loss during the operation cycle of the pneumatic system. The maximum values of the damping coefficient over the entire considered range of variable parameters are 1.16–1.29. It was established that with the volume of the additional tank in the range from 30 to 50 liters, the maximum values of the damping coefficient are observed at a diameter of the connecting pipeline of 25 mm and a speed of movement from 200 to 250 km/h. And with an additional tank volume of 60 liters – with a diameter of 30 mm and a speed of 170 to 250 km/h

The problem of the conversion of diesel buses to electric ones in connection with the inevitable introduction of the EURO 7 emission standards entails an automatic requirement to follow several additional United Nations Economic Commission for Europe rules, like R100 regulations. They regulate the preservation of battery units at longitudinal 12 g and transverse 10 g accelerations without penetrating into the elements of the bus body. Three models (12 modes in total) of battery units with frames made of S235 steel were analysed. The maximum stress value varies between 364.89 MPa and 439.08 MPa in 10 g and 12 g modes, respectively, which is beyond the tensile strength (360 MPa) and provokes plastic deformations. The max deformations were recorded in the models with the highest average stress: 63.04 mm in the 12 g mode with an average stress of 83.18 MPa. The minimum deformations of 6.95 and 7.95 mm were found in the 10 g modes (left and right acceleration direction, respectively), which meet the manufacturer’s requirements (45–50 mm maximum). The study’s primary contribution lies in developing a practical method for assessing battery unit integrity and structural behaviour during the conversion of diesel buses to electric propulsion, fully compliant with R100 regulations. By combining transient structural simulation, mathematical centre modelling of acceleration propagation, and centre of gravity prediction, the proposed approach enables engineers to evaluate electric conversions’ safety and certification feasibility without modifying the existing bus body.