A Converted Shuttle Bus Hit Broadside In A Fuel Island

Commercial files run differently from personal ones and the difference shows up on day one. The field appraiser on this claim wanted the unit number, the in service date and the prior repair history on the same asset before he wanted to talk about the damage, because that is how fleet claims are evaluated. We log all three at intake as a matter of course, so when the request came it was a two minute email rather than a week of the operator digging through records.

The impact was between the wheel wells, which on a bus body is the worst place for it structurally and the best place for it cosmetically. Worst structurally because the body frame is carrying floor loads across that section with no wheel arch to stiffen it. Best cosmetically because there is nothing in the middle of a bus side that anyone looks at closely, unlike a front cap. The owner cared about the graphics and the passengers, in that order, and the structure was the thing we cared about.

Measurement against factory reference points came before anything was straightened, and it showed the section had moved. That measurement drove everything else. Framing members that had bent but stayed continuous were pulled and measured during the pull rather than only at the end, which matters on a body this long because a section that measures correct at rest can be wrong under load. Two members had folded rather than bent, and folded aluminum has already exceeded its yield point, so those were cut out and replaced with new material joined the way the factory joined them.

The floor was the supplement. It was not visible until the seating and the interior wall panels came out, and it was completely predictable once you understand that a broadside impact on a bus transfers energy into the floor structure through the wall. Two crossmembers were deformed. We photographed them in place with the seating still stacked in the aisle, before anything moved, because a crossmember photographed after removal proves nothing about where it came from. That supplement was approved without questions, which is what happens when the photograph is taken at the right moment.

The second supplement was the refinish and it is the argument we have most often. The initial estimate allowed a partial blend, which is a completely standard automotive allowance and which assumes a panel a few feet across with a body line to hide the transition. A bus side is thirty two feet of continuous surface with no break at all. A blend on that body puts a transition edge in the middle of an unbroken panel, in direct Southern California sun, on a vehicle that carries people who will be standing next to it. We submitted the panel dimensions and it was approved.

Graphics were reproduced rather than reordered because the organization's original artwork files had been lost in a computer migration years earlier. We photographed the driver side, rebuilt the artwork to scale, printed new film and applied it. The operator's only note at delivery was that the new side looked slightly brighter than the old one, which is true, and which is what happens when you compare ten year old vinyl to fresh vinyl. Fifty days from arrival, and the reflective marking and side lighting were function tested before it left.