China throws cars under the bus – IOTW Report

China throws cars under the bus

elevated bus china 1

CNNmoney: The Transit Elevated Bus had its inaugural test drive in Qinhuangdao, China. The bus can hold 300 people while driving over cars on the road and aims to alleviate China’s overcrowding problem.

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UPDATE:

Straddling Bus From China Actually Has Rubber Wheels.

The TEB-1 Straddling bus is in trouble. Chinese state media are saying that it is unsafe, and that the company behind it has illegally raised money. But there is more. TEB, the company behind the bus, distributed the fancy news photos that all media have been using. But the reality looks a lot less fancy.

h/t Ricky.

16 Comments on China throws cars under the bus

  1. Clever!

    Eliminates the “infrastructure” of elevated rails
    (trains are awful, compared to busses, anyway,
    as far as flexibility and efficiency go)
    and uses what’s on-hand (if crumbling away, anyway…).

    I’ll still keep my own car, though, thank you very much.

  2. It must alleviate traffic congestion by scaring drivers the hell off whatever route it runs. I remember when my kids went through their first car wash. There was some freaking out involved. This thing would freak me out.

  3. This is actually a very interesting idea, and could solve some traffic congestion problems.

    BUT…you know the Chinese will fuck it up.

    Built competently and with the correctly constructed roads/tracks to run it on, it could work. The big question would be how difficult will it be to integrate this system into cities and their road systems that were not designed with this in mind. If you were building a city from the ground up, planning to use this, you could design your roads accordingly.

  4. Suppose a normal vehicle gets stuck in traffic while turning and then an überbus comes along and finds its path blocked?

    Suppose there’s a collision or something that causes a normal vehicle to burst into flame while under the überbus?

    Suppose some bad person tosses a load of bricks on the überbus’s path, especially those shallow gutters?

    Suppose the battery charge doesn’t quite get the überbus to the next station?

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