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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.
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
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...
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!
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'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.
What whitewashed history book did you read? Even http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass says that the compass was invented in China.
Give me 5 minutes and that will say it was invented by me
> 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
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
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.