A bus (or omnibus or autobus) is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. A bus can generally seat a maximum of anywhere from 8 to 300 passengers. Buses are the most widely used form of public transportation,Fact: date=March 2009

The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses. A more luxurious version of the bus is the coach. Buses are usually powered by a diesel engine, although early buses were horse drawn and there were experiments with steam propulsion. Trolleybuses use power drawn from overhead power lines. In common with the car industry bus manufacturing is increasingly a globalised activity, with the same design of bus appearing on roads around the world.

Etymology

Bus is a derivation of Omnibus Vehicle meaning "vehicle for all", where omnibus means "for all" in Latin (omnes meaning "all"), reflecting its early usage for public transport. When motorized transport replaced horse-drawn transport starting around 1905, a motorized omnibus was for a time sometimes called an autobus, a term still used in French and other languages, and in some varieties of English.

Pronunciation

IPA bʌs, or in some dialects buːs, plural may be either "buses" or "busses", both pronounced bʌsɪz.

History

There are indications of the first bus dating back to 1662, although serious horse drawn public transport bus services were not launched until the 1820s. Early buses were horse drawn vehicles, a combination of the hackney carriage and stagecoach concepts. From the 1830s the steam powered bus also existed. In parallel to the development of the bus, was the invention of the electric trolleybus running under a system of wires, which actually preceded, and in many urban areas outnumbered, the conventional engine powered bus. The first engine powered buses emerged along with development of the automobile. After the first engine powered bus of 1895, models expanded in the 1900s, leading to the widespread introduction of the contemporary recognisable form of full size buses from the 1950s.

Designs

The names of different types of bus vary around the world according to local tradition or marketing, although buses can be classified into basic types based on their general features.

A bus may have an open platform so that passengers can join and alight without for the driver to open doors, but in many countries this is considered dangerous and is discouraged or indeed illegal.Fact: date=March 2009 On the other hand, in some countries bus use is so heavy that passengers will cling to the outside of the vehicle if it is full.Fact: date=March 2009