MAN ERF and S & B Training
Motorcycle Ambulance Trailer Design and Build
Nigeria, June 2006
MAN ERF apprentices at S & B Training in Bristol have been learning about more than just cutting edge truck technology this year.
The young team discovered how their skills can make a real difference as they worked on our challenge to design and build a prototype motorcycle ambulance trailer to provide emergency transport for pregnant women in Nigeria.
The design had to have a lightness and structural stability to withstand rugged terrain, whilst carrying prengant women with a passenger at speed, and in reasonable comfort. Declan Donnelly, a third year apprentice based in Northern Ireland, emerged with the simplest, most robust and most cost-effective design package and the 'Dec-lander' was born.
A 3-D model was drawn up, and the apprentices got to work sourcing materials. A basic-spec motorbike, similar to those commonly used in Nigeria, was found and the Mark-1 Dec-lander was built.
The trailer may look basic, but keeping it low-tech was one of the most challenging parts of the brief. To be sustainable, the trailer had to be capable of being constructed in Nigeria, using available expertise and materials. So Declan traveled to Nigeria with Pete Vill, Senior HGV Lecturer at S & B, to ensure that the prototype they built in the workshop in Bristol would translate to remote, rural Dutse in the north of the country. MAN ERF’s mad about motorbikes Paul Sadler joined them to train the motorcycle taxi union members who will ride the finished thing. Here's their diary.
Day 1: Heat hits us as soon as we come out of arrivals. Driven up to Dutse, our base for the next two weeks, in an old Merc with a whining back axle, no air con and no rear seat belts. Welcome to Africa! It’s a shock, from the antiquated Kano air terminal to the poverty we witness at the side of the road. Arrive at Dutse safely and head up to “The 3 Star Jigawa Hotel Ltd”.
Day 2: The hotel, what can we say! No running water. Just an old blanket on the beds. A selection of lizards, centipedes, cockroaches. Sure it will seem like home after a day or so. Meet the motorcycle union riders who Paul will be training for the rest of the week. All very keen to improve their operating conditions. Pete and Declan visit the Julius and Moses’s workshops, and the government garage, in Dutse who are all in competition to find the winning interpretation of Declan’s design. They’ve had the spec and funding in advance, so have already got the body built and Julius is in the lead with the frame built too. Give them a bit of advice where needed but very impressed by what they’ve put together so far.
Day 3: Can’t do the practical rider test, as planned, as the bikes they arrive on are in such poor condition. Most have no front brake. Many have bald tyres and defective lights and they are running two strokes on car engine oil, creating a blue haze which hangs over the town. 4 new bikes have been bought, to be kept with the trailers. Four new bikes, to be kept with the trailers, will arrive in the morning, so Dec and Paul can show the riders the advantages of setting up a machine correctly. Buy straw bushman hats, which earns a lot of amusement and respect from the locals.
Day 4: Pete and Dec go off to visit the fourth workshop in Hadejia, 2 hours away. Find it’s a training school set up to give street kids a trade and come back enthused, 3 months training. Paul stays to prep the new bikes, which are Chinese copies of Honda CG125’s. In the first observed ride, Inspector Sada, the police rider trainer, insisted on riding 4 abreast down the main road of Dutse. Certainly made people stare and raised the profile of the project. All of them ride very well, especially considering they generally wear flip flops or sandals and a robe! We’ve got to get them to accept that they must wear safety equipment.
Day 5: Formal closing of the 1st weeks training by the Commissioner for Woman’s Affairs. All very excited about arrival of new bikes and progress with trailers. Try out a few slow speed maneuvers and braking tests that can be used with trailer attached. They need to gain confidence on the new bikes prior to working with the trailer. Travel to Kano in the afternoon for R&R at Prince Hotel, pure luxury after the “3 Star”. Really nice to have clean sheets, a hot shower, a swim and decent food for the weekend. But poverty only the thickness of a brick away, while we’re in the pool the people outside are scratching a living.
Day 8: Inspector Sada, Dec and Paul take the new bikes on a 50-mile route to iron out any problems, on a mix of tarmac road, loose surface and soft sand. Bikes all cope well. Real concern that the trailers will be ready for testing with the bikes. Initial construction of the trailer frame was very quick but the more complex problems with the suspension mounting and brake system have slowed all the teams. Pete walks around the garages, helping to work through their problems.
Day 9: Trailers still not ready. Really worried that we’ve come all this way and we’ll never get to see them finished.
Day 10: Walk around the garages trying to gee them up. At 3pm the trailer from Hadejia is delivered and seems very well thought out. It even has lights and indicators. Moses has lost the plot and welded everything together in an attempt to make it stable, so now it’s got no suspension. This evening Julius mounts a sneaky test ride. Our hearts skip a beat as we see his Dec-lander following a perfectly straight line behind the bike and, as he stops to buy a last minute part, about 500 people gather round.
Day 11: Formal commissioning ceremony. All the riders arrive in convoy; Day-Glo vests, horns blaring amid a cloud of two-stroke smoke. Great to see them arrive en masse, they all have a real sense of pride in being involved in this project. Julius’ design is head and shoulders above the rest and we proclaim him the winner. We leave the garages with recommendations on further modifications to make the trailers stronger and safer.
We’re really proud to have seen the Dec-lander brought to life. All the trailers were true to Declan’s original concept and the most important part of Transaid’s brief, to design something that could be built using local materials and skills, was fulfilled. Really impressed by the garage’s fabrication skills, and the enthusiasm of the riders. Next steps are further safety trials and official vehicle licensing for the trailer. Then we hope mass manufacture can begin so that the women can start to benefit. At the moment, women in Nigeria have a 1 in 40 chance of dying in pregnancy and not being able to get emergency transport is a big part of the problem. We’re proud to think that we’ve had the chance do something to change this.
Transaid will be following up with its project partners in Nigeria to develop the manufacture and implementation of the Dec-Lander.
*Pete Vill, S & B Training
