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I have no idea. I only photograph buses, I don't drive them.
There's been a trend with bigger and bigger engines in Norway for the recent years. Ten years ago, any bus would do with less than 400 hp, but now you'll rarely find a proper tourist coach or express coach with less than 420 hp. Scania have now upped their power to 480 hp and Volvo are currently breaking over 500 hp with B12B and B13R(coming soon). But why this has increased is unknown to me.
Why? Just to accelerate faster on overcrowded streets In my opinion it's good to find interest not only in taking pictures, but also in technical things about buses
Hehe. I do find some interest in the technical stuff, but I'm a programmer and not a mechanic. I think it's not as simple as that. First of all, the roads that these buses travel on are not overcrowded. There are only 2-3 million cars in all of Norway, and geographically the country isn't so small, so a lot of the time the buses can drive as fast as they are allowed (80 km/h for any big vehicles on any road). The reason why they need bigger engines than other countries is probably that Norway is a country with many steep roads. Most of the roads go over the mountains, not through or around them. Also many roads have a lot of sharp curves, so being able to accelerate out of them quicker is probably also one of the reasons. If you're looking for freeways (or what the brits call "dual carriageway") between the bigger cities, you woun't find that in Norway. The only exception is the road between Oslo and Göteborg in Sweden, and some short stretches near the big cities.
In Poland, in terms of coaches, there are generelly three groups of operators. First of them consist of old PKS companies (Polish Car Communication), which were founded in years of socialism. They expect buses to be cheap or just don't renew their fleet. Another group are privat operators, which generally use small vehicles like Mercedes Sprinter. These operators are more flexible and competitive than old PKS companies. Last group is represented by operators who provide service on international lines and work for travel agencies. They use high standard coaches, mainly Scania Irizar, Mercedes, MAN and others.
@JP: you forgot to add that the only group that buys any noticeable numbers of new buses is the second one. You need evidence - here you are. This year, the best-selling intercity coach in Poland is... Mercedes-Benz Sprinter!
That's interresting. In Norway people don't want to travel far in small buses, at least when they have the possibility to travel in a big coach, or with a train. MB Sprinter is the best-selling in its category in Norway too (followed by Iveco Daily), but the main markets are maxi-taxi, school bus, hotel services and for small tourist groups. Where the buying force is in Norway is on the big expensive coaches. Many of them don't stay in that service longer than 3-4 years, when they have done 1-2 million kilometres.