How to Read an Otokar Coach Specification Sheet

A coach data sheet becomes readable only against the legal envelope it was built to fit: Directive 96/53/EC for what may circulate, Regulation (EU) 2021/535 for what may be type-approved, UN Regulation No 107 for how the body is built. Each has its own scope. R107 paragraphs follow the EUR-Lex text at OJ L 52 of 23 February 2018.

Which dimensions bind, and where

Annex I, point 1.1 of Directive 96/53/EC caps a two-axle bus at 13,50 m, one with more than two axles at 15,00 m, and an articulated bus or bus-plus-trailer at 18,75 m. Point 1.2 sets width at 2,55 m, except under its point (b) — superstructures of conditioned vehicles or conditioned containers or swap bodies transported by vehicles — at 2,60 m. Point 1.3 sets height at 4,00 m, point 1.5 a swept circle of 12,50 m outer and 5,30 m inner radius. Point 1.4a catches touring operators: ski-boxes and other removable attachments count inside the point 1.1 length, and the TERRITO school is “Pre-equipped for ski/bike rack” as standard.

Those do not all bind equally. Article 4(1)(b) forbids Member States to authorise normal circulation of national passenger transport vehicles not conforming to points 1.1, 1.2, 1.4a, 1.5 and 1.5a. Height is absent: point 1.3 sits instead in Article 4(2)(b), under which a Member State may authorise national passenger transport not conforming to points 1.3, 2, 3, 4.1 and 4.3. Article 3(1) draws the line from the other side — no Member State may reject a vehicle registered elsewhere in the Union in international traffic for reasons relating to weights and dimensions, but in national traffic only for dimensions.

Otokar’s TERRITO school brochure — the Territo U’s school variant, and source of every Territo figure below — lists lengths of 10 865 mm, 12 200 mm and 13 000 mm, all under the two-axle ceiling, on wheelbases of 4 865 mm, 6 200 mm and 7 000 mm with overhangs fixed at 2 710 mm and 3 290 mm. Adding a wheelbase to the two overhangs reproduces each quoted length exactly — a check we ran that the brochure does not print. The Ulyso T 10 measures 10 100 × 2 450 × 3 250 mm; its turning figures — 10,6, 11,46 and 12,41 m between walls, 8,4, 9,5 and 10,59 m between kerbs — are worthless until you know whether each is a radius or a diameter.

For a body already inside the two-axle ceiling, a third axle buys weight, not length: the 1,50 m between point 1.1’s two figures is our subtraction, the table printing only 13,50 and 15,00 m.

The weights, and the traffic they govern

Article 1(2) settles what those weights are: the Annex I values are “valid as circulation standards and thus refer to loading conditions, not production standards”. They govern how a vehicle may be loaded, not how it may be built, and Article 4(2)(b) lets a Member State authorise national passenger transport that does not meet them at all. What follows is an international-traffic ceiling on loading.

Point 2.3.1 allows a two-axle bus 19,5 tonnes against 18 tonnes for a two-axle motor vehicle other than a bus, point 2.3.2 a three-axle motor vehicle 25 or 26 tonnes. Point 3.1 limits a single non-driving axle to 10 tonnes, point 3.4.2 the driving axle of a bus to 11,5 tonnes, and point 4.1 requires the driving axles to carry at least 25 % of the total laden weight when used in international traffic.

Otokar’s numbers: front axle 7 000 kg, rear 12 000 kg, GVW 19 000 kg — the two axle figures adding to the GVW exactly, another sum of ours rather than the brochure’s. These are the other kind of number: 19 000 kg is a technically permissible maximum laden mass, which R107 paragraph 2.19 defines as stated by the manufacturer on the vehicle’s construction and performance.

Under AXLES the brochure lists an independent ZF front and a rigid Mercedes rear, naming neither as the driving axle. That silence costs. If the rear is the driven one, 7 000 kg on the front plus point 3.4.2’s 11,5 tonnes on the rear comes to 18 500 kg, 500 kg short of the plated 19 000 kg — both figures our arithmetic, in neither the brochure nor the Directive. And they bound a load on an international run, not a lower construction rating: the brochure’s 12 000 kg rear may still be usable domestically under Article 4(2)(b).

First, whether R107 applies

Paragraph 1.2 of R107 excludes four kinds of vehicle from the Regulation’s requirements, and 1.2.4 is “Vehicles specially designed for the carriage of school children”. Whether a TERRITO school falls inside it these documents do not say: Otokar presents it as the school variant of an intercity bus, not a purpose-built school vehicle.

The arithmetic below survives either answer: the EU act repeats it without the carve-out. Annex XIII, Part 2, Section C of Regulation (EU) 2021/535 is headed “Vehicles of category M2 and M3” and has no school exclusion: point 2.2.2 states the mass sum, 2.2.3.8 the passenger masses, 2.3.1.1 the luggage floor.

Luggage volume converts into payload

Paragraph 3.2.3.2.1 of Annex 11 says B, “declared by the manufacturer, shall have a numeric value not less than 100 × V”, V being the total baggage-compartment volume in m³ including exterior racks and ski-boxes; roof baggage BX must be declared at not less than 75 kg/m². Section C sets the same floor at 2.3.1.1 and at 2.2.3.1 defines B as the luggage mass stated by the manufacturer, including any B′ in a ski-box. It has no BX term.

Both floor a figure the manufacturer declares; neither fixes it, and Otokar declares no B anywhere — only volumes. So the floor has to be computed: the TERRITO school’s 3,3, 4,8 and 5,25 m³ compartments could not be declared below 330 kg, 480 kg and 525 kg, the Ulyso’s 5,5 m³ below 550 kg. Those four figures are ours — the brochures supply the volumes, the two acts the multiplier — and the declared masses may be higher.

The volume itself depends on the document: the TERRITO U 12 model page advertises “Large 5 m³ luggage capacity” for the model as a whole, the school brochure 4,8 m³ at 12,20 m.

Where seats and baggage compete

The same paragraph fixes Q, the passenger mass, at 71 kg for Class II and for Classes III and B — three of those kilograms hand baggage — and 68 kg for Classes I and A; Section C’s 2.2.3.8 tabulates the same values. Paragraph 3.2.3.1 sets the sum that must close: mass in running order, plus Q times the seated and standing passengers, plus WP (wheelchair spaces times 250 kg), B and BX, plus any coupling-point mass, must not exceed M. Paragraph 3.2.3.2 then tests that loaded vehicle axle by axle, the driving axles carrying at least 25 per cent of M.

Two things stop a buyer running that sum from a brochure. Q depends on the class, and neither Otokar document states one; across the 63 seats in the brochure’s standard 13 m row the 3 kg between 68 and 71 kg comes to 189 kg — our multiplication, from the brochure’s seat count and the table’s two masses. The class also decides whether standing passengers count: Annex 11 sets the standing area S1 to zero for Classes III and B, and paragraph 2.1.1.2 confines Class II standing to the gangway and/or an area no larger than the space for two double seats.

Note what does not belong in the sum: paragraph 2.18 puts the driver at 75 kg, and a crew member at a further 75 kg where a crew seat is fitted, inside the mass in running order itself.

Seat dimensions follow the class too. Annex 3 paragraph 7.7.8.4.1 sets 680 mm between the front of a seat squab and the back of the one preceding it for Classes II and III against 650 mm for Classes I, A and B; 7.7.8.2.2 sets 400 mm minimum cushion depth for Class II or III. Paragraph 7.7.8.1.1 measures cushion width F from a vertical plane through the centre of the seating position, then splits: 225 mm in Class III at 7.7.8.1.1.2, 200 mm in Classes I, II, A and B at 7.7.8.1.1.1. Those are half-widths; doubling them gives 450 mm and 400 mm across, but that arithmetic is ours and neither figure appears in the Regulation.

The relaxation is narrower than it looks. Paragraph 7.7.8.1.3 opens “For vehicles not exceeding a width of 2.35 m”, and its two sub-paragraphs do different work: 7.7.8.1.3.1 sets the available space G to 200 mm, disapplying 7.7.8.1.2, and leaves the cushion alone; only 7.7.8.1.3.2 takes cushion width F to 200 mm, and only in Class III. A 2 450 mm Ulyso body is outside the 2,35 m gate and reaches neither.

Regulation (EU) 2019/2144 repealed Commission Regulation (EU) No 1230/2012, which carried the Annex XIII now in 2021/535; EUR-Lex records its validity ending 5 July 2022.

The specification checklist

1. Length, width and height with and without ski-box, against 13,50, 2,55 and 4,00 m — and, for height, whether the operating Member State has used Article 4(2)(b).
2. Wheelbase and both overhangs against the stated length; turning figures with radius or diameter and wall or kerb basis stated.
3. Maximum laden mass and each axle’s load, as construction ratings rather than Annex I circulation limits, plus which axle drives — this brochure does not say.
4. Whether R107 applies at all, or the vehicle sits in the 1.2.4 school exclusion.
5. The class, which sets Q at 68 or 71 kg and whether standing passengers count.
6. Declared masses B and BX, not the volume that only floors them, and that volume from the document naming both length and variant.
7. Seat pitch, cushion width and depth as delivered — the regulatory width a half-width, the 2,35 m relaxations closed to a 2,45 m body.
8. Mass in running order, and suspension type per axle.