Shortly after King Long’s 5th generation mid-size luxury coach, the Jieguan 5 (捷冠5), was unveiled at the Bus & Truck Expo in Beijing it was announced that it has won the “2020 Tourist Bus Innovation Award”. This success is the culmination of a two year design programme between DCA and King Long, with DCA being responsible for both the exterior and interior design of the new coach, who name fittingly translates as Champion.
The new coach is of strategic importance for King Long, the mid-sized coach market represents a significant amount of international and domestic sales for the Chinese bus maker.
DCA kicked off the project in 2018 at King Long’s headquarters in Xiamen. “We started with ergonomic and human factor research, assessing their current passenger and drivers seats. Seat comfort is central to a great experience on-board but goes further than just the seat so we also observed and interviewing passengers, drivers, operators and maintenance staff on several coach journeys while we were in China. These activities coupled with our research into shifting travel behaviours and passenger expectations gave us crucial insights and laid the foundations for our later design work“. Explained Lisa Baker, DCA’s Human factors and Ergonomic skill leader on this project.
As part of the DCA’s collaborative approach for vehicle design we invited different stakeholders such as King Long’s key suppliers, global sales partners, operators and drivers to give feedback at key points in the design process. This proven approach helped us gaining market insights and inform the team on technical and cost constraints early on in the process, greatly helping to maintain the design intent and smoothen the transition from concept to production.
The exterior design is a new take on King Long’s existing brand language, carrying over some key design elements but refining King Long’s brand language going forward, injecting a sense of precision, simplicity and energy.
The DCA custom designed LED headlights and other active safety features such as the automatic collision detection and adaptive cruise control of which its sensors and radar units have been integrated into the design of the front facia all help make this King Long’s safest coach yet.
For the interior DCA’s team of designers and ergonomic experts redesigned the seats and passenger touch points for a better on-board experience. The controls for the air vents and reading lights traditionally sit near the window making them hard to access for the passenger in the aisle seat. DCA redesigned the luggage racks so that the internal air ducts could move further towards the aisle allowing for the air vents and reading lights to sit directly above each passenger making them easily accessible for both.
DCA developed the passenger seat together with King Long’s supplier and due to its modular design it will be offered with range of options including a tray table, USB charging ports and tablet and phone holders.
The contrasting light grey and dark blue colours being used throughout the interior not only help reduce the visual clutter but also make the interior visually more spacious. The iconic King Long blue is being reinterpreted and combined with a special hard wearing metallic like finish. This material is being used on high impact areas and helps reduce damage, keeping the interior looking fresh longer.
Shortly after the new Jieguan 5 was unveiled in Beijing the organisation of the exhibition announced that it has won “2020 Tourist Bus Innovation Award”.
The new Jieguan 5 will become available in at least 4 different lengths and goes on sale in China from today with the rest of the world to follow shortly.
