VöV-Standard-Bus

The VöV-Standard-Bus is a standard for transit buses in Germany based on requirements by the VöV Association of German Transport Companies.

Post-war Germany had made good experiences with the definition of a standard body kit for tramways that were built onto old chassis in a coordinated refurbishment action.

The practical experiences from maintenance workers, bus drivers and passengers were assembled in a VöV recommendation named "Typenempfehlung für einen VÖV-Standard-Linienbus".

The basic concept was meant for one-man operation with passenger flow from the entry at driver to the exit at the second door near the rear wheels.

Since the mid-1970s ideas were compiled on a second-generation standard bus with the floor height reduced to allow for access with just one step.

The Hamburg transport authority had to order 22 prototypes of the "S 80" series (named standard bus for the 1980s) to refine the concept.

The models were tested for two years by 8 different transport companies in Germany until the second generation standard bus was settled.

However the initial concept was based on ideas for a low-floor bus type as Auwärter Neoplan had been showing this possibility with the N416 in 1976.

In the late 1980s the manufacturers started to test low-floor variants based on the SL-II concept leading to the Mercedes-Benz O405N and MAN NL202 being both in production since 1989.

Also Auwärter started to produce low-floor variants of the Neoplan N4014, N4014, N4016 bus models which were successful on the international market.