Is it a boat, or a bus? Looking at the new Hafencity Riverbus in Hamburg, reveals it’s actually a bit of both. The amphibious capability makes it ideally suited to the port city on the Elbe. Most of Hamburg’s tourist attractions are located either on, or adjacent to the waterfront.
While driving on land it’s like any other bus.
After the owner saw something similar in Singapore 18 years ago, he had to do serious pioneering work and a lot of paperwork to finally get the amphibious bus to Germany.
The development took a total of four years, since in Germany amphibious cars are not part of the traffic law.
Underneath the actual passenger cabin sits a MAN truck chassis, the body and the waterproof hull come from Hungary. It’ll drive just as every other bus on the road, but once hitting the water the bus will be equipped with two water jets in the aft of the truck. This ensures excellent maneuverability in Germany’s most busy port.
Maintenance work on the unusual vehicle is carried out by clever engineers at MAN Truck & Bus Deutschland GmbH. The manager is a skilled mariner and when it comes to this half-bus-half-boat his heart beats a bit faster. Because it’s still a one-off, the workshop staff needs an extremely high level of technical knowledge to get spare parts in time. Fortunately this is what German engineers are known for, and even sometimes have to get a piece of metal and a milling machine to create a new one from scratch.
Because the river bus is so successful, in its first two month of operation it took over 6,000 guests through the city. The status as a one-off may be change in near future as there are five to seven amphibious buses in the pipeline.
