506s old stop buttons

[L94UBbusfan]

A bit of a random question, but does anyone know what happened to 506s old stop buttons? I was looking at photos of 506 in the gallery and saw that it had different stop buttons to the stop buttons on all other CB80s. At some point within the last 13 years they've been removed for some reason. Does anyone know the answers to the following questions...

1: Why were they removed?
2: Was 506 the only bus these stop buttons were fitted on?
3: When were they removed? (approximately)


(these are the ones I'm talking about)

[Sylvan Loves Buses]

Sadly I don't remember, but they do look familiar. I would imagine just like 491's special buttons, they got replaced so all the buses were uniform. Unfortunately 506 got the absolutely garbage wireless ones we got now.

[Barry Drive]

This has been (partly) discussed before: https://www.actbus.net/forum/index.php?topic=1362.msg40855#msg40855

Despite appearing differently, the stop buttons on the early artics were the same system as the large round buttons originally on 491-505. These were ultrasonic based and were extremely unreliable.

They were all replaced with RF wireless buttons, but if you know where to look the buses which were originally fitted with the sonic system still have a sensor inside the bus.

Can't recall which was the last bus delivered with them, but someone else might.

[L94UBbusfan]

Despite appearing differently, the stop buttons on the early artics were the same system as the large round buttons originally on 491-505. These were ultrasonic based and were extremely unreliable.

They were all replaced with RF wireless buttons, but if you know where to look the buses which were originally fitted with the sonic system still have a sensor inside the bus.

Thanks for the explanation, I've only ever seen them in photos from the launch event for 506, so I assumed it was just a one off trial thing that never took off. I think I've seen them on some of Adelaide's K280s from around that time. Would I be correct in assuming the original stop buttons on 491-505 were the same as what was on all of Sydney's and most of Adelaide's K280 CB80s?

Can't recall which was the last bus delivered with them, but someone else might.

Just a guess, but the last bus with the sensor may have been 525, since it was the last from the original order for 20 artics (also the last bus delivered to ACTION with the ZF Ecomat transmission)

[CBRFlyer]

The ultrasonic buttons were horrendous, someone sneezing or jiggling some keys around would sometimes trigger the next stop alert. 

It's weird seeing buses in other cities that still have the system which don't seem to have the same issue 

[Sylvan Loves Buses]

Lol, they may have been horrendous, but at least they worked. The ones we've got sometimes don't work so badly you either have to try another button (sometimes several) or hit it really hard...

[Buzz Killington]

Lol, they may have been horrendous, but at least they worked.

They didn't work, at least not as intended. Hence their removal.