- New family of seats for bus and rail addresses the needs of passengers, mobility providers and society
- Ultra-lightweight construction in a sustainable design: small ecological footprint thanks to large potential for carbon reduction, recyclability and circular readiness
Grammer AG, September 20, 2022 – At InnoTrans in Berlin from September 20 to 23, 2022, Grammer will be providing answers to the requirements posed by urban passenger transport of the future. At Stand 610 in Hall 1.1, the leading manufacturer of commercial vehicle seats will be unveiling its innovative Ubility One passenger seat family for the first time. All three seat models – Ubility Light, Ubility Air, Ubility Shift – feature an unusual design, innovative lightweight construction, consistent orientation to the needs of the circular economy and a pleasant surprise in terms of seating comfort.
“We are very pleased that after the mostly virtual presentations held during the pandemic, InnoTrans now offers us a real stage for presenting Ubility One to a broader audience,” says Dr. Andreas Diehl, President Division Commercial Vehicles, Grammer AG. “Our goal with Ubility One is to make urban passenger transportation much more sustainable and we’re accomplishing this through innovations in design, comfort, materials and recyclability.”
Three zones, three seat models
During the development of Ubility One the focus was on people and their utilization profiles in urban transportation. Among other things, the Grammer team considered recent studies of passenger flows and the findings derived from these on how interior zones are used: standing/leaning around entrances/exits, flexible seating options for high change frequencies and seating areas for passengers with longer dwell times.
The most striking new feature of the Ubility Light is that it can be used in both directions of travel without any conversion and is therefore particularly suitable for flexible use in heavily frequented interior zones. Its ultra-lightweight aluminum frame consists of only five components (instead of 50 as in comparable seats) and is covered with a durable knit fabric. Aha effect: minimalism combined with surprising seating comfort.
The Ubility Air is a lightweight seat featuring twinsheet technology: It consists of an outer and an inner shell, which are connected to form a highly stable air-cushion structure. It is designed for seating areas for medium and longer distances in urban transportation. Aha effect: comfortable seating despite the absence of any padding at all.
The Ubility Shift implements a next-generation solution for standing and leaning in entry/exit areas with a high change frequency: The leaning/sitting triple is a combination of padded, body-high supports for leaning and ergonomically designed grab bars. Aha effect: the upholstered part slides down when body pressure is applied, and, thanks to clever kinematics, releases a small seating surface.
Proven and award-winning: sustainably innovative
Sustainability is a mandatory component of all new developments at Grammer on its way towards becoming a green company. Ubility One meets this requirement in terms of product design as well as the materials used and its service life. One example of this is its light-weight construction: With its smart design, the Ubility Light achieves a weight advantage of 60 percent over today’s standard seat shells. The double shell of the Ubility Air sets new standards thanks to its extremely material-efficient design with a full weight of only 4 kilograms; in addition, it is up to 100 percent recyclable thanks to the mono-material made from recycled base materials. Another example is its environmental footprint: The first seating series for buses and trains, the Ubility Light is “circular ready” across its entire product life cycle, i.e., designed for recyclability and material separation.
“We asked an independent institute to calculate the carbon footprint of all three seat models in comparison with a Grammer standard rail seat,” says Diehl. “The results were already significantly lower for the first product life cycle: They are around 20 percent lower for the Ubility Light than for the reference model. If the seat is recycled two or three times as intended, its carbon footprint can be reduced by up to 75 percent.”
Innovativeness that inspires: Thus, Ubility One was awarded the 2022 Innovation Prize in the readers’ poll conducted by German trade magazine Busplaner.
Company profile
Grammer AG, headquartered in Ursensollen, Germany, is active in two business segments: Grammer develops and supplies high-quality interior and operating systems as well as innovative thermoplastic components for the global automotive industry. For trucks, trains, buses, and off-road vehicles, Grammer is a full-service provider of driver and passenger seats. Currently, Grammer AG employs around 14,000 people in 19 countries worldwide, with sales of around 1.9 billion euros in 2021. Grammer shares are listed in the Prime Standard and traded on the Munich and Frankfurt stock exchanges as well as via the Xetra electronic trading system.