The Bendy Bus,MAN A24 Euro 5~:10 Years of the Production Batch and 12 years of the Demostrator ✨

Time flies really quickly and already,the 5th and currently Singapore's last bendy bus model has officially hit 10 Years on the road with it's Demostrator already hitting 12 years.

*The 12 Year bendy,SMB 388S*:
Introduced in 2013,The MAN A24 Euro 5 Demostrator,SMB 388S made it's debut on to our Singapore roads and debuted on 190 and was to replace the first Bendy of Singapore,an MK1 MB O405G,TIB 838H.

SMB 388S,is the only A24 that uses SMRT's 2004's Livery.It also uses the older Gorba EDS (similar to the Gorba Habit "Gorbit"),used a different Aircon pad(before it changed) and had a slightly different interior aswell (following the Batch 1 MAN A22's).It also featured using a slightly older Voith as compared to the Production batch and it's also slightly heavier.It also became the first Low floor & WAB bendy bus in Singapore.

The Demostrator spend most of its time in KJDEP (until now) and did a lot of routes like 190,972(bef BPITH),176,180,302 and so much more.

Just like SMB 5001A,SMB 5888H etc,SMB 388S is one of the few Demonstrators that continued to run,even after few years and BCM.

The Production:~
Following the success of 388S,SMRT then order another 39 additional fleet of A24's,mainly to replace the retiring MK1 O405G's.

In 2015,the production batch made it's debut (on 190 first). With the production batch,it featured the iconic Sliver-Pixel livery and had a lot of new things aswell,back then.

The production batch featured a similar intiror look to the A22 Batch 3's,Featured a newer Voith,Mobitec EDS (the usual eds that ADL and A22/A95 used),a much different Aircon model (before 388S did change it) and was lighter apparently as compared to SMB 388S.

The production batch started of from KJDEP first and slow spread to WLDEP and the former AMDEP,which also did the debut of 858 bendy bus deployment,which is a milestone at that point too.

GCM/BCM:
In 2018,10 Units of the MAN A24 was transferred to SBS Transit as part of the Seletar Bus Package.They are mainly for the Yishun Feeder Services as Bendy Buses has been the heart and soul fleet of the Yishun town.

Originally came in rojak livery before fully repainted to Lush Green by the end of 2019

In 2021,another 7 Units was transferred to Tower Transit as part of the Sembawang-Yishun Bus Package which is ment for 858,but has deployment on 169 & 969 eg.

only two units was repainted to Lush Green in TTS,mainly SMB 8038A and SMB 8015R.

With the bendy buses being left with 40 units,it is best to treasure them whenever you could as the Bendy Buses do hold a lot of memories for us:)

With that,hope you enjoyed this vid and
have a great day ahead :)

Song used:
The Great Spy Experiment - Flower Show Riots (yesh ✨)

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