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Post by sid on May 9, 2018 4:15:48 GMT
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44041597A public bus engulfed in flames in a European capital - but no-one in Rome thought to blame terrorism. Instead they wearily pointed the finger at the city's beleaguered transport authority, Atac. The blaze on the number 63 bus, which happened on the busy Via del Tritone shopping street in the city centre on Tuesday, was the ninth this year and follows 22 last year. So frequent have the fireballs become that they have their own social media hashtag #flambus (which rhymes with Trambus, Atac's previous name). "Only in Rome does a bus explode in the heart of the city and people immediately blame Atac, with no thought of terrorism. It says a lot about our emergencies," said journalist Raffaella Menichini on social media. www.thelocal.it/20180508/rome-public-transport-another-bus-goes-up-in-flamesmobile.twitter.com/search?q=%23flambus&s=typd&x=19&y=14
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Post by rmz19 on May 9, 2018 11:44:13 GMT
Speculation and conspiracies aside, although tragic, I have to say this isn't really surprising. I was actually in Rome for a week around a month ago, went on many bus journeys there and the state of some of the buses are quite appalling. Some of the Iveco Irisbuses look like they haven't been well maintained and are falling apart.
A particular journey that stands out for me was on the 70 from Lepanto to Termini. Firstly the LED blinds were not working for whatever reason so a piece of paper was stuck on the windscreen displaying '70', it was very difficult to decipher what bus it was from a distance as the piece of paper was tiny! On board the bus was extremely loud and rattly which was made a million times worse due to some cobbled roads along the way. A part of the roof was loose from one of the poles near the rear which made an extremely loud noise every time we went over a bump. All of this was exacerbated by the hot and stuffy conditions inside and enabled for a very unpleasant ride, which is a shame as the route itself is very nice.
ATAC really needs to invest more in their buses and maintain them, especially for tourists visiting the city. There are some newer buses though which were in much better condition like the Citaro, Citelis and their articulated variants. So a Citaro catching fire, if indeed a mechanical/technical fault is quite strange given how relatively new they are compared to the older buses.
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Post by vjaska on May 9, 2018 13:15:02 GMT
Speculation and conspiracies aside, although tragic, I have to say this isn't really surprising. I was actually in Rome for a week around a month ago, went on many bus journeys there and the state of some of the buses are quite appalling. Some of the Iveco Irisbuses look like they haven't been well maintained and are falling apart. A particular journey that stands out for me was on the 70 from Lepanto to Termini. Firstly the LED blinds were not working for whatever reason so a piece of paper was stuck on the windscreen displaying '70', it was very difficult to decipher what bus it was from a distance as the piece of paper was tiny! On board the bus was extremely loud and rattly which was made a million times worse due to some cobbled roads along the way. A part of the roof was loose from one of the poles near the rear which made an extremely loud noise every time we went over a bump. All of this was exacerbated by the hot and stuffy conditions inside and enabled for a very unpleasant ride, which is a shame as the route itself is very nice. ATAC really needs to invest more in their buses and maintain them, especially for tourists visiting the city. There are some newer buses though which were in much better condition like the Citaro, Citelis and their articulated variants. So a Citaro catching fire, if indeed a mechanical/technical fault is quite strange given how relatively new they are compared to the older buses. There have been a few Citaros catching fire across Europe over a number of years but the number of ones that catch fire compared to the amount of Citaros actually built is very tiny. It sounds like there is a lack of decent maintenance in Rome of this company's buses so probably that was the cause - after all, WL had many Volvo & Trident fires and their maintenance at the time wasn't particularly great.
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Post by snoggle on May 9, 2018 14:38:59 GMT
Speculation and conspiracies aside, although tragic, I have to say this isn't really surprising. I was actually in Rome for a week around a month ago, went on many bus journeys there and the state of some of the buses are quite appalling. Some of the Iveco Irisbuses look like they haven't been well maintained and are falling apart. A particular journey that stands out for me was on the 70 from Lepanto to Termini. Firstly the LED blinds were not working for whatever reason so a piece of paper was stuck on the windscreen displaying '70', it was very difficult to decipher what bus it was from a distance as the piece of paper was tiny! On board the bus was extremely loud and rattly which was made a million times worse due to some cobbled roads along the way. A part of the roof was loose from one of the poles near the rear which made an extremely loud noise every time we went over a bump. All of this was exacerbated by the hot and stuffy conditions inside and enabled for a very unpleasant ride, which is a shame as the route itself is very nice. ATAC really needs to invest more in their buses and maintain them, especially for tourists visiting the city. There are some newer buses though which were in much better condition like the Citaro, Citelis and their articulated variants. So a Citaro catching fire, if indeed a mechanical/technical fault is quite strange given how relatively new they are compared to the older buses. I was going to say "welcome to Italy". They have a very strange attitude to public transport. In some places it's reasonable but in a lot of places the fleets are of very mixed vintage and some tram routes have very venerable trams working them (not just Milan either). There are so many examples of derelict infrastructure, worn out assets etc. It also takes decades to get anything approved and even longer built - largely due to the massive extent of Roman antiquities which cause massive delays to projects. I've only been to Rome once and used the buses a fair bit - the whole network seemed to be under enormous strain because the buses are really doing what a metro network should do but you try building Metros in Rome. They're only just on their third line in over 70 years and it is taking forever to build in the central area. I'm not excusing shoddy maintenance but I'd say there are systemic reasons why things are as bad as they are (lack of stable government, lack of stable funding, old fashioned labour practices, public indifference etc etc). I note there is going to be another official investigation into this latest bus fire - wonder if it will dig out the real reasons for so many problems?
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Post by busaholic on May 9, 2018 23:29:50 GMT
Speculation and conspiracies aside, although tragic, I have to say this isn't really surprising. I was actually in Rome for a week around a month ago, went on many bus journeys there and the state of some of the buses are quite appalling. Some of the Iveco Irisbuses look like they haven't been well maintained and are falling apart. A particular journey that stands out for me was on the 70 from Lepanto to Termini. Firstly the LED blinds were not working for whatever reason so a piece of paper was stuck on the windscreen displaying '70', it was very difficult to decipher what bus it was from a distance as the piece of paper was tiny! On board the bus was extremely loud and rattly which was made a million times worse due to some cobbled roads along the way. A part of the roof was loose from one of the poles near the rear which made an extremely loud noise every time we went over a bump. All of this was exacerbated by the hot and stuffy conditions inside and enabled for a very unpleasant ride, which is a shame as the route itself is very nice. ATAC really needs to invest more in their buses and maintain them, especially for tourists visiting the city. There are some newer buses though which were in much better condition like the Citaro, Citelis and their articulated variants. So a Citaro catching fire, if indeed a mechanical/technical fault is quite strange given how relatively new they are compared to the older buses. I was going to say "welcome to Italy". They have a very strange attitude to public transport. In some places it's reasonable but in a lot of places the fleets are of very mixed vintage and some tram routes have very venerable trams working them (not just Milan either). There are so many examples of derelict infrastructure, worn out assets etc. It also takes decades to get anything approved and even longer built - largely due to the massive extent of Roman antiquities which cause massive delays to projects. I've only been to Rome once and used the buses a fair bit - the whole network seemed to be under enormous strain because the buses are really doing what a metro network should do but you try building Metros in Rome. They're only just on their third line in over 70 years and it is taking forever to build in the central area. I'm not excusing shoddy maintenance but I'd say there are systemic reasons why things are as bad as they are (lack of stable government, lack of stable funding, old fashioned labour practices, public indifference etc etc). I note there is going to be another official investigation into this latest bus fire - wonder if it will dig out the real reasons for so many problems? First (of only two) visits to Rome in 1964, school trip, stayed in a hotel opposite the Colosseum, with a trolleybus route outside (bliss, we'd just lost our London trolleys, and these were single deck, like I'd never seen before). What's more, people clinging to the outside of them as they seemed constantly full. Don't remember seeing many buses, but did go on the Underground. 'Sir, why is it called Line B when they don't have a Line A?' 'The Italians think differently from us - that's why they lost the war' or somesuch. I did see some trams at the station, but we were never allowed to travel on them - probably the same ones in service today. I can forgive them anything for those ice creams, though!
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