In Nagoya City, which is undergoing a series of redevelopment projects to accommodate the Linear Central Shinkansen Line, the SRT, a connecting bus that travels slowly and leisurely through the center of the city, will soon make its debut. SRT, which stands for “Smart Roadway Transit,” will enter Hirokoji-dori Avenue from Sakae in the center of Nagoya, loop around the JR Nagoya Station area, and return in 40 minutes per lap. The vehicle used is a Mercedes-Benz Citaro G. It is the same type of articulated vehicle often seen on Keisei buses in the Tokyo metropolitan area, but what makes it different from regular articulated buses and BRT? I got on board …… and found that the bus is more comfortable than conventional articulated buses and BRTs, and has some exciting tricks. We visited the SRT test-ride event held for the press before the buses go into service on February 13, and actually got on board.
Citaro but with fewer seats, a counter and a wide window with XR technology? The Citaro G used by SRT has a capacity of 122 passengers with 35 seats. Originally, the Citaro G was 5 cm wider than a regular route bus vehicle, and it also has fewer seats than the Citaro running in Makuhari, Chiba, and other areas. The rear car has a four-seat car with a table, and the front car has a counter with an electrical outlet from which passengers can enjoy a generous view of the Nagoya cityscape. The interior design is chic, and if you look closely, you will notice that the flooring and the get-off button have been changed to an unusual design. Even for the same articulated bus vehicle, the interior design is very artistic. Another feature is the introduction of the MOOX-RIDE augmented reality (XR) on-board information monitor. The bus has one wide bus window (transparent display) in the front and one in the back, and Toyota Boshoku’s XR technology is used to display stop information when the bus is approaching a stop, sightseeing information when there is free time, and “Nagoya meshi” (Nagoya delicacies) such as miso katsu (miso fried pork cutlet). This allows passengers to enjoy content unique to Nagoya and unique to SRT while enjoying the scenery. According to the person in charge at Toyota Boshoku, it was difficult to set the brightness of the overlapping images while maintaining the view of the scenery behind. In the Nagoya Station area, the character “Satoru-kun” (voiced by Zundamon and Ryusei Aoyama), created by the Nagoya International Technical Vocational College, bounced around cutely. The character and design were decided after a competition among classes and seminars, and the students of the Department of Information Technology in the Faculty of Engineering and Science who were involved in the design said, “I want to ride the comfortable SRT again and see Satoru-kun. Toyota Boshoku’s XR technology, which was the subject of the “Digital Contents Bus (The XR RIDE)” at the Osaka-Kansai Expo in 2025, will become even better known in the bus industry through its practical application in Aichi Prefecture, Toyota Boshoku’s home prefecture. Toyota Boshoku’s XR technology, which was also the subject of “The XR RIDE” at Expo 2005 Kansai.
© Source travel watch