Special Volkswagen vehicles for Special Needs Transport

The Volkswagen LT coach built minibus is the mainstay of the West Midland Special Needs Transport (WMSNT) fleet. But on top of the Birmingham-based charity’s most recent order for 34 Volkswagen LT35 minibuses, there was the additional purchase of three Volkswagen Transporter Tucanas.

The Volkswagen Tucana is an extremely spacious coach-built vehicle that begins life as something called a Zugkopf. This is the unusual arrangement of two Transporter cabs bolted back to back, and which is used for transport at the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles’s factory in Hanover.

Bluebird Vehicles Ltd in Scarborough constructs the Tucana using the driveline and braking units of the Volkswagen Transporter, adding a corrosion resistant steel structure, a low composite floor and an independent rear kneeling suspension.

Front-wheel drive is essential in the construction of the Tucana, which makes the Transporter an ideal base vehicle.

Powered by 2.5-litre 130 PS diesel engines, the three Volkswagen Tucanas have been built to WMSNT’s specification and feature 14 passenger seats, ten of which
can be removed, and four fixed tip and fold seats. Wheelchair access is achieved
by means of a folding ramp via the rear doors which can be used when the rear suspension is lowered.

Fleet Manager for WMSNT, Paul Elverson, said: ‘The Volkswagen Transporter Tucana brought together a number of elements we required in one vehicle including the low floor, automatic transmission, ease of access at the front, and rear air suspension allowing the safe and easy boarding of wheelchairs.’

The three Volkswagen Tucana and 34 LT35 minibuses are operating as transport for 265 children – 60 of whom are in wheelchairs – who attend the Calthorpe Specialist Sports College in Birmingham. The children all have special educational needs, so to enable them to easily identify the minibus taking them home, the light blue Calthorpe College fleet has been given a distinctive sports symbol livery.

This latest order increases the number of Volkswagen minibuses in the WMSNT fleet to 286. The Calthorpe College contract represents a new dimension to the service provided by WMSNT, which maintains its position as the UK’s largest provider of door-to-door transport services for people with mobility problems. In 2004/05, through its Ring and Ride service, the charity ran 1,950,000 trips for its 52,000 registered users.