Futuristic Chinese Bus Concept

[James]

I could see this concept bus being a real pain in the arse in areas where there are a lot of intersections. Imagine being stuck underneath this thing and needing to make a turn.

 

[Jonny5]

Uh oh. Is this all an elaborate fraud?

Last week, a futuristic traffic-straddling bus, raised over the road so cars can drive underneath, was road-tested in China. There was great excitement about this possible solution to traffic woes, but questions are now being asked about whether the project is feasible or even real.

 

[interchange42]

The infrastructure required for this would be insane for the small benefits and tons of restrictions to normal road use that it would bring, all the while probably scaring the hell out of drivers underneath it. I can easily see cars slamming into each other and it while underneath owing to the degree of disorientation most driving under it would feel. What a great idea: potentially have flaming wreckage underneath a vehicle with 300 people trying to escape from above. Meanwhile, if a "bus" does become crippled/destroyed by a crash, what a clean-up that would be, and a complete shut down of the service while the disaster is cleaned up.

I am not sure if I have ever seen a stupider transit "solution" proffered ever.

I believe it's more likely that this is a deliberate fraud of some type, and I'm thinking I should probably read that BBC story linked above…

42

EDIT: Having read the article now, if it's not a deliberate fraud, it's simply the product of insanity. Nah, it's fraud.

 

[Johnny Au]

At least the Transit Elevated Bus is more realistic than this:

Yep. It's the Homer, the car that made Homer Simpson's half-brother go bankrupt (for a while).

The Transit Elevated Bus would have numerous safety issues that even the designers can't address on the spot.

 

[mdrejhon]

Uh oh. Is this all an elaborate fraud?

It's hard to say, because the Chinese has unusual ways of operating society...

They sometimes prebuild infrastructure out of the wazoo -- creating side effects such as massive ghost cities.

Whereupon some of them actually succed later, having become heavily populated 5, 10 years later (albiet not all of them successfully gets heavily populated -- there are failed ghost cities and successful formerly-ghost cities).

This leads me to believe, what is interpreted by us as "fraud", is interpreted, handled, adjusted and recovered very differently over there...

Which means, in other words, this may be a practical vehicle design for a clean-slate street of a specific engineered city... But would work poorly in a random street of a long-established city... Once many flaws are perfected, including escalating automatic flashing/sirens when tall vehicles start approaching it, and must-follow the built-in traffic lights telling cars whether it's safe to proceed under the straddling bus (which might only be allowed at 'bus stops' or only during glacial slow motion -- to solve inability to see signage at side of streets or traffic lights up ahead).

Maybe, it could be just a low-speed peoplemover that runs at jogging speed at all times (still faster than a TTC streetcar sometimes).

Enough problems gets solved, it can be made to work on an engineered street where all the safety factors have been accomplished. But is it worthwhile and cheaper/better than alternatives? Doubtful -- but then again, the Chinese has rather interestingly unorthodox ways of operating their society.

It's like experimenting with "Hyperloop" (Which also incidentially, has its own share of possible fraud) -- to build and try it, solve and 'perfect' it.

Arguably the first airplanes of the late 19th century and early 20th century were frauds from their perspective of the day -- and there were lots of lawsuits on failed airplanes -- before they began to really work and be reliable.

....And no, the LRT projects should not cancel their projects because of this highly experimental straddling vehicle. (A few anti-LRT residents in Hamilton been suggesting adopting this straddling bus as an excuse lately)

 

[Jonny5]

It's hard to say, because the Chinese has unusual ways of operating society...

Err... did you read that link? The man who invented this design has frequently made very exaggerated claims of partnerships with Chinese cities and interest from foreign buyers, which appear to all be fabricated.

He's built this one prototype, yes. It works on his small test track, yes, But as of now there are no buyers and no interest. His factory is idle, his showroom closed, his prototype doing nothing new for years.

Yet he is still selling shares of the business on claims that there will be hundreds of thousands of these all over the world in a few years.

It's basically an potemkin bus. He's taken in massive amounts of money and done nothing with it but build one prototype and rent a warehouse. He's got 100x he needs to do that and has had it for years now.

 

[mdrejhon]

Err... did you read that link?
[snip, snip]
He's got 100x he needs to do that and has had it for years now.

I did, but so is Hyperloop.

There's several companies building Hyperloop -- some of them seemingly pyramid scheme companies too, just like this one -- while others seem more serious and actually going about it methodically. There's a huge mix of multiple Hyperloop companies, all jockeying to build such a system.

Just like airplanes 1890 and Hyperloop 2010 (studying airplanes history, there were fraudster schemes back in the day) -- this straddling bus might work for the Chinese -- for a specific engineered city (but not our city) -- and possibly by a different company.

 

[M II A II R II K]

Could be better to build this over existing rail track corridors instead. To bypass freight and other rail services.

But not in trenched corridors of course.

 

[interchange42]

You'd still have to raise it over any spurs leaving the rail line, and over any bridges that crossed that rail line, and at that point you might as well just turn it into a… wait for it… Monorail!

Did somebody say Monorail?!

42

 

[Lumber King]

This seems like a logistics nightmare in the GTA. I doubt this would ever work or be approved if it's not "fraudulent." But, these sort of ideas will always have a place to attempt to solve problems in our ever growing urban spaces.