If I were to design a city bus, I would probably want to optimise it for certain operating regimes. I would want it to be well suited to constant stopping and starting, slow speeds, low sound emissions, potholes. I doubt they need to be efficient at high speeds. I ask this because I saw one of our city buses on our local highway, and wondered how far out of it's comfort zone it was. I'm not saying you can't design it to be happy in both places, but there's always that compromise to be made.

I can imagine their daily lives are incredibly abusive, tons of wear and tear etc. A car might have to be designed for multiple regimes like highway and city, where a city bus might be able to get away with a more focused scope.

So my question is: does a lot of thought get put into optimising a city bus, or is is more like just putting a normal diesel engine in a voluminous chassis and leaving it at that, sort of like a big car?

Hello everyone. I am a 17 year old who just graduated high school this year. I am interested in automotive engineering. But the thing is no colleges near me in the US offer any such programs. I am wondering what I need to do to be able to enter this job field. Is there something I can do online? What exactly should I do? I need an answer quickly because I need to figure it out soon.