Rietze 1:87 Solaris Urbino 18 Articulated Bus: Swiss Postal Service

Solaris Urbino 18 is a low-floor articulated version of the Solaris Urbino series buses designed for public transport, produced by the Polish company Solaris Bus & Coach from Bolechowo near Poznań in Poland. It is the second most popular (after the Solaris Urbino 12) Solaris model in terms of the number of units sold. Since 2005, the third generation of the Urbino 18 is produced. In addition to the basic model, which is powered by an diesel engine which meets the Euro 5 emission standard, there are versions produced to meet the EEV and fueled with CNG or the second generation hybrid bus model.

On 2 August 1994, Neoplan Polska company was established in Poland. 5 September of the same year, the first low-floor buses Neoplan N4020 (15 metre long) were ordered by Warsaw. 5 October 1995, the day after signing the contract for the supply of buses to Poznań, it was decided to build a factory in Bolechowo near Poznań.

Between 1996-2000 Neoplan Polska built the Neoplan N4000-series buses. In 1999, the company even as Neoplan Polska started to independently produce buses under the brand Solaris, but the offer was not yet available for the short 9 or 10 metre buses. Therefore, the Neoplan K4010TD low-entry midibus with two doors was built with a length of 9.5 metres. However, only 3 were built and all were sold to Świdnica. The Solaris Urbino 9 replaced three of the shortest in the Neoplan N4000-series: N4007, N4009 and N4010. In 2001 Neoplan was taken over by MAN, but Neoplan Polska became a separate company as Solaris Bus & Coach, which has preserved the company tradition and assets - including models of the buses - of the Polish branch of Neoplan.

In Switzerland, the postbus system is known as Postauto in German, Car postal in French and Autopostale in Italian. Although the combination of mail and passenger transportation had been self-evident in the past, the needs of each diverged towards the end of the twentieth century, when the conveyance of parcels was progressively separated from public transportation. This was also so on private bus and rail lines. This division became official with the conversion of Swiss PostBus Ltd into an independent subsidiary of the Swiss Post. The company operates 869 bus lines with 2,193 buses in Switzerland, transporting over 140 million passengers annually on its 11,869 km long network.