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The Bus That Rides Above Traffic
An anonymous reader writes "China is the new tech king. They're developing a new, two-lane bus system that travels over traffic below. It's claimed to cost 10% of a subway system and use 30% less energy than current bus technologies." This one has been boggling my brain. I can't see how this is a good idea or safe. But it sure is awesome.
Countries can still one-up China by designing a bus that can leverage existing roads.
Boredom is bliss.
From the sketches it appears the buses use a rail on one side to help guide them, this is probably the biggest failure point. All it will take is someone crashing into the rail to cause a delay for the bus until it can be repaired. Seems like they would be better off just building an elevated road for buses only. My first though was that the buses would just use rails like a train that were set to be flush with the road so cars could easily change lanes. Only problem there would be debris de-railing them. The best solution would be to let everyone telecommute and invest in laying fiber for greater bandwidth. ;)
Do they have trucks in that area? Wouldn't that pose a minor issue?
No smoking sigs indoors.
Couldn't you get trapped under a bus when there's congestion and end up missing your destination?
So you are worried about a bus collapse?
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
This looks cool, but I have to wonder how practical it is. First, you'd have to design all your roads and bridges to accommodate it, but second, you'd have issues with things like turning traffic (don't forget to look for a giant bus over your head or coming from behind before you make that turn!) and possibly even pedestrians, although I'm sure they'll have a clever solution like not putting it right next to the sidewalk.
Just thinking of how things are on my bike sometimes, though, the turning traffic was the first thing that came to my mind.
R.Mo
Yeah I'm not sure how this will interact with the way the Chinese drive. My wife has been there for business before, and she says that while Chinese people are generally better drivers than people here in the states, they have to be because the streets are like a giant game of no-contact bumper cars. People basically just do whatever the hell they want.
Do they have trucks in that area? Wouldn't that pose a minor issue?
I don't speak Chinese but from watching the video it appears that there is a warning signal when a truck is detected as approaching from behind or in front of the bus. In addition to this there are black and yellow poles that apparently act as truck detractors like the upside down U-shaped hoops in lawn croquet. The bus would fit over these perfectly but a truck in this same section of traffic would hit one of these before endangering the bus. It appears that this would designate which lanes are okay for trucks (however they then also pose a bit of a traffic obstacle where they come down in between lanes).
My bigger concern is turning and how the sections bend and twist between themselves (as seen at around 5:30 in the video). Is this on a rail or not? Because I could see that being potentially problematic and accident prone if drivers fail to yield to you. I'm interested that they're already planning on deploying this as I think there are things to iron out yet.
My work here is dung.
The best solution would be to let everyone telecommute and invest in laying fiber for greater bandwidth.
That would be a wonderful solution if nobody MADE any thing.
you know those nasty, dirty people who produce everything you own.
I have not been able to find a way to run my cabinet shop from my desk. I'll be damned if I don't have to keep traveling to the shop to cut things and assemble things and those darned customers think that we should deliver and install too.
please crawl back under your bridge now.
-- Sig under construction...
If 90% of the office workers could telecommute and you removed them from the roads, wouldn't that alleviate much of the congestion in the first place? Assuming a mixed load of white and blue collar commuters, of course?
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
You've got the same problem with streetcars and trolleys. Never seems to slow them down much.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Chinese driving is not compatible with this idea. Chinese cities have some terrifying traffic behavior. Not that I think such a system would even be safe in the nicest town.
You mean like ... china, paper, woodblock printing, gunpowder, compass, the fork, fireworks, go, maglev wind power generators, negative numbers, menus, tea, toilet paper or the toothbrush?
I mean, granted, not all of these are new things - in fact most of them are all fairly old (the maglev being the exception), but I really doubt any of us would want to go without them.
sure, a country should make things and the people who do can commute to work. But that's still would leave a huge chunk of the population who could work from anywhere. we're wasting time and fuel being on the roads, only 5% of days at most would I physically need to be present at work or at client.
I was wondering why all the people getting onto the bus were caucasian, myself.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
The advantages of el trains and monorail systems is that they don't compete with street traffic. The advantage of buses is that they can pass each other -- one stalled car doesn't take the whole line down as currently happens with light rail. Elevated bus lanes seems to me the best of both worlds.
Regarding earthquakes, elevated roadways are a mature technology. Nothing is 100% safe -- if you're looking for absolute safety we'd never build anything -- but built to today's standards, elevated roadways shouldn't be any less safe than any of the other tall structures hanging over you -- overpasses, skyscrapers, bridges, etc.
Parenthetically, light rail on the street is the worst of both worlds. The disadvantages of light rail (the system moves as a whole or not at all) with the disadvantages of buses (the system competes with street traffic). When I was living in San Jose, cars being t-boned by light rail in low speed collisions was so common that people started scrawling under the ubiquitous "Taking 217 cars off the road" the addition "One car at a time".
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
That is a problem with the driver attitude. Replace him with an automatic system (it is driving a guided vehicle in a dark tunnel, what benefit is a human anyway?).
Most of that stuff was invented independently in Europe, so even if China never existed, we'd still have those items.
Plus you gave credit for some things that were actually invented by the Arabs or the Romans/Greeks. Like the compass.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
That's a fascinating idea. Some postings claim that construction will start this year, but it seems unlikely. They'd have to build a prototype and a test track first, and if they had that, there would be pictures.
The thing runs on road wheels, not tracks. Steering is at least semi-automated, to keep it properly positioned. It's electrically powered, with recharging as it passes through stations. The electrical contact mechanism for recharging, as drawn, is wildly optimistic about the difficulties of making contact with a moving vehicle. The illustrations show solar cells atop buses and stations, but no way can those yield enough power for this thing.
They're vague about how the articulated bus corners. The trick with articulated buses is avoiding crush points. Real articulated buses have turntables and bellows at the joints, and they narrow at the join region. That's going to be tough with a vehicle this wide. Also, it's not at all clear how transitions to hills are handled. Does it articulate in pitch, too? All that can be made to work; San Francisco, of all places, has large articulated buses. The joints were troublesome at first, but the second generation of joints seems to work adequately.
Also, on sharp turns, there had better not be cars underneath.
The emergency evacuation slide system is a bit much, as is the roof entry stair system.
I was with you until you said "no-contact". Now I don't believe your wife has ever been to China.
1. Foundations under the roads would have to be completely redone to support the extra weight, trains have large supports under the rails to support the weight of the trains, so its not just a simple cut holes put in rails, and drive.
Looks like the rails steer it and regular tires support the weight.
I imagine old fashioned cable cars (frisco?) work the same way, in that the cable provides the "pull" but the cable cars do not by any means hang from the cable. (an Aerial Tramway is a totally different concept and does in fact hang from the cable)
The vehicles have a small surface area that contacts the ground
I would not worry so much about tire friction as about wind surface area. Coasties are supposed to know all about hurricanes, but even Chicago "the windy city" can't use these. The center of gravity being extremely high, I'd think the odds of overturning in a breeze would be high. In addition to the dynamic stability issues of basically being a ten foot tall upside down pendulum even under ideal conditions.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
It's not using the guard rail. They're on tracks. It's basically light rail that uses existing roadways instead of requiring a widening of the roadway. They use signal lights inside to indicate turns and radar to sense when you're too close to the supports and make an announcement to the driver. At turns, the signal lights would stop all the cars and only the train would go, just as with any other light rail system. Debris that might derail this train would derail any other light rail train as well. It's much cheaper than building a subway and they're going to commence building 186 km of track by years end.
All it takes is one fucktard in a dump truck straddling the line a bit too close, and the entire bus collapses. Cute.
Of course, this is China. They'll shoot the fucktard, repair the bus, and the next day none of the state-run newspapers will dare carry the story because it embarasses The Party.
Yet another of those "well it seems like a good idea until we really think about it" concepts, kind of like the Segway (only useful/practical in some really, really niche markets) and moving walkways (useful in airports sometimes, not really practical for city streets).
What whitewashed history book did you read? Even http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass says that the compass was invented in China.
It also requires special infrastructure to be built, it CANT drive off the tracks it's already on.
Build an elevated platform, slap a train up there. CALL IT DONE.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I can't see how this is a good idea or safe. But it sure is awesome.
It's a good idea because it has huge capacity, causes minimal extra congestion, and the infrastructure is no more expensive than a tram system.
As for safety, it doesn't seem substantially less safe than a double decker bus, and certainly safer than several dozen cars.
Not at all. Many jobs will still be location-specific, and many will still drive - but it could be far less than now.
There is not only many jobs that actually don't need physical presence at all, such as most forms of banking transactions and many services.
We also gave the opportunity to serve more people with the same car at the same time for many common tasks, especially shopping. Let us think of a food store. Food can be delivered once or twice a day from the warehouse, to the whole street and surrounding streets, instead of everyone getting into a car and fetching their own. This not avoids a real lot of smaller cars in traffic between the shop and homes by simply having a larger one there (of which far less is space that is being used rather than empty), but also may avoid many cars that first travel to an additional point of sales, sometimes maybe not even fully loaded in order to restock things that ran out. And there can be a further reduction of surprises in logistics not only by having a larger volume of sales, but by delivering only once a day, and the next day at the earliest - a thing possible even with perishables that require refrigeration/cooling these days, as well-insulated containers with dry ice or frozen water or outdoor fridges can keep things frozen/cold enough until people are home.
And this became only feasible because only the internet makes it somewhat adequate to shop online. It gives a well-verifiable, fast, and safe way to buy or sell things right down to payment, with many perks for either buyer and seller.
Why stop with just one layer of buses. Why not create even larger "hyper-buses" that can travel over the smaller buses? Imagine the layers of buses you could create!
ehhh... Toothbrush was invented in Arkansas, otherwise it would be called teethbrush.
*Ducks*
I wouldn't call it a bus if it ride on Rails, it more of elevated Train.
Guaranteed easy kill for any wannabe terrorists who drive a loaded truck or car bomb underneath this bus. Stupid idea.
I don't think you realize how easy it is to kill lots of people with a car bomb already. This thing won't improve the kill ratio by even 2:1 and may even lower it because the bus would likely contain the explosion somewhat.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Give me 5 minutes and that will say it was invented by me
Good grief, grow a pair. Terrorists can blow up things, big deal. That doesn't make building new things a bad idea.
3D Printing, my friend. Go to IKEA's Web site, download the plans to your 3D printer, and print.
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
> People basically just do whatever the hell they want.
:).
Therefore they're not better drivers. And I think the statistics do indicate that drivers in China are worse than those in the US.
As for anecdotal evidence:
1) A friend of mine has a chinese wife. When he was visiting her relatives in China, he had the opportunity to get into the driver's seat and started adjusting the rearview mirror. His wife's relatives at the back asked what he was doing, and it seems they were unclear on the concept of the rear view mirror, and they used it more as a vanity mirror
2) Another friend of mine visited China and his taxi driver drove the wrong way around the roundabout just because it was a shorter distance.
3) When my brother went to China, his van driver drove on the wrong side of the road for a significant period till oncoming traffic almost hit them - then the van driver swerved to the correct side. What bothered my brother a lot was that the driver actually looked scared by the incident.
4) I personally know people who have gone to china and not come back alive because of traffic accidents.
In contrast I do not hear of such problems from friends or relatives going to USA, UK or Australia. I have had friends who had problems with "black ice" in the UK, fortunately nonfatal, but that's a different thing.
Horse. Shit.
And I have proof.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QESfEd180rQ
I'm betting it costs a lot less to lay rails than to actually build an el and all of that infrastructure.
I definitely agree with you on that. However, the real benefit to cost probably isn't the infrastructure savings, but the right-of-way benefits. One of the biggest costs of building light rail or monorail or whatever is getting a place to put it. With this "bus" the city already has the right-of-way and is doubling up on its use.
Americans are good drivers compared with a lot of the world. Not the best certainly (Germans are indeed far better), but good. Much more of the world is like Italy than Germany, or at least the bits I've seen or heard of. I've personally observed a fair chunk of Europe and the Middle East; and while northern Europeans are generally as good or better drivers than Americans, most of southern Europe is kind a scary. The Middle East is freaking frightening, and I say that as someone who did most of his driving there in an armored vehicle. Asia in general doesn't look any better in the footage I've seen, though there are definite exceptions (Japan comes to mind immediately). From first hand accounts of friends, Africa is one giant game of bumper cars in most countries.
If you listed every country on Earth in order of driving safety, I'd be willing to bet the US would be in the top 15 or 20 percent. And yes, that does scare the Hell out of me now that I think of it.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Maye you got modded down because of your selective quoting. The parent to your post was talking about streetcars and trolleys, not the DC Metro system, which is trains on dedicated tracks.
And also maybe because you used your tangential complaint to segue into your personal desire to use a car, based on fallacies in your post, which no one really gives a flying fuck about.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
NOTHING, I own that I have bought in the last twenty years is/was/has been made wholly or mostly in the USA, with the exception of service, food and desktop support almost everybody in the USA could telecommute at least several times a week.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
And to think I'm talking to the inventor of the compass right here on /.!
The enemies of Democracy are
it was attempted in the 60's. Pittsburgh does now have separate busways, but not elevated.
You both seem to be taking this to extremes. There's no good reason to have people come in every single day when they're working on a project. But that doesn't mean that it's sane to have no personal contact either.
I know I get very little done being in the office all of the time, and generally if I work from home for a few days I usually get a hell of a lot done. That doesn't mean I think it'd help anyone for me to just work at home all the time, as I can't see how staying out of the loop would help anyone.
We need employers to be more flexible (which actually probably requires insurance reform, funnily enough.) If someone doesn't need to be on-site all of the time, let them work from home, but not to the detriment of team working. Yes, this will cut down on congestion, and oil dependence, and our balance of payments. We should do it.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I guess it's cheaper if the buses carry their own platform instead of building platforms for hundreds of miles.
Was in Barbados a few weeks ago. Talk about some seriously balls-out drivers. The roads are terrible, and their "highway" is the width of a normal single-lane road in the US, so many of the drivers have to stop and let others pass, etc. Many times we were scraping through foliage on the sides of the road, or a mere inch from a drop-off, building/wall, or 2 foot deep draining ditch. I have to admit, I was very impressed, but it was a bit scary at high speeds. Those guys are damn good!
Horse. Shit.
And I have proof. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QESfEd180rQ
I hate to say it, but I definitely woulda considered hitting the idiots standing in the middle of the road at roughly 2 minutes and at roughly 2m12s.
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