Chinese company proposes a bus cars can drive under

[M II A II R II K]

Chinese company proposes a bus cars can drive under


Aug. 2, 2010

By: Brian Osborne



Read More: http://www.geek.com/articles/news/ch...under-2010082/

China, with its booming economy and population, is facing major traffic problems. One big reason is the number of buses on the road. China Hush reports that Chinese-based Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment has the solution. The company is proposing the creation of a road-straddling bus that cars can drive under. The mega bus would have the capability of carrying 1200-1400 riders at a time. Passengers will be able to enter and exit the bus using terminals which span the road allowing for traffic to continue under the bus while it is stopped. Another option is to have passengers enter the bus using a built-in ladder. There are two ways the company proposes for the bus to be piloted safely. Rails can be installed on both sides of a car lane or white lines can be painted on both sides of the bus which would allow autopilot technology to be used. The rail method is preferred since it offers a 30% energy savings.

Besides conserving space on the road, the bus would also conserve energy since it would be powered by electricity and solar energy. At each terminal the bus would receive a charge from sliding contacts which connect to the bus along its roof. This environmentally friendly way of powering the bus will allow the buses to save 860 tons of fuel a year and reduce carbon emissions by 2640 tons. The idea for the 3D Fast Bus, as it is being called, is not that farfetched. The project promises a 20-30% reduction in traffic jams and its building cost is only 10% of what it would cost to build an equivalent subway. That being said, it’s no wonder there is already a pilot for the project being planned in Beijing’s Mentougou District. The project is to begin construction by the end of the year and will encompass a route that’s 186km long.

• Video Link

[llamaorama]

Wow!

Has anything remotely like this ever been planned before? Ironically, it seems like such a simple idea.

[PragmaticIdealist]

I like the idea, and I'd like to see it employed on all sorts of R.O.W.'s, including rail lines.

The expense of grade separation is in the heavy infrastructure.

[Krases]

It is a cool concept. I honestly don't see drivers figuring out how to pass under it. Plus the escape mechanism seems to be begging for a stampede of people jumping out of the cars and with 1400 passengers that would get deadly fast.

Instead, it should be used in conjunction with light rail on its own dedicated lane in the center of the road with ways for the buses to pass each other.

TO THE LAB! *turns on google sketchup*

[10023]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Wow!

Has anything remotely like this ever been planned before? Ironically, it seems like such a simple idea.

It's been planned before.

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Rails can be installed on both sides of a car lane or white lines can be painted on both sides of the bus which would allow autopilot technology to be used. The rail method is preferred since it offers a 30% energy savings.

So instead of an elevated rail, they want to put the rails on the ground and then run the most expensive rolling stock ever conceived over it. Great.

[Krases]

It would still be a lot cheaper than subway and even cheaper/less intrusive than elevated roadway.

[J. Will]

It would be fine for narrow roads, where it would straddle the entire road (as one example in the video shows, where the road is only two lanes wide). But for wider roads where it only strands some of the lanes, it seems like it would be awfully dangerous.

[Pavlov]

^ Especially in Chinese cities where there is no such thing as a "lane". I can't really imagine how this could work in Beijing. But in a city where cars are lined up in an orderly and predictable fashion, where cars could pass underneath, and more importantly, the bus could pass over cars stuck in traffic, its an interesting idea.

[Krases]

*bursts out of the laboratory*

Hows this? I whipped this up in an hour (most of the time just rendering it).









Pics by me.

[llamaorama]

You guys clearly lack creativity. Worst case scenario, they could put up concrete jersey barriers around the space where its sides roll and/or make it run on tracks with double flanged wheels that "grab" the rail and would help prevent such a wreck. Also, the thing could have emergency ramps and a lift device for the disabled in case of an evacuation. It doesn't suffer from the same problem as monorails in this regard since by always requiring some bottom clearance near its sides you'd just work this stuff in and not worry about deploying ways down in an urban environment.

I guess the weak link would be in perpendicular crossings, though.

The benefit of this over an elevated rail line is that while the vehicles would be incredibly costly, a elevated right of way would be even more so.

[Krases]

I can see it working on a freeway by having a pair of lanes separated for the use as toll lanes.

Do we even have a name for this bus? I want to call it the "high bus". Or "hbus".

[Nowhereman1280]

^^^ Again though, the entire point of this is to add capacity. Capacity can be added just as easily by building elevated heavy rail over the same lanes. These things will be expensive to build, unreliable because of a huge number of stress points and excessive moving parts, and you still have to lay rails in the ground protected by jersey barriers and platforms to load them with. On top of all of that you loose most of the benefit of electrified rail like regenerative breaking and scalable capacity and add issues like bus bunching. Where is the benefit again? Is just a wastefully futuristic take on the train and bus...

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Nowhereman1280

... On top of all of that you loose most of the benefit of electrified rail like regenerative breaking and scalable capacity and add issues like bus bunching. Where is the benefit again? Is just a wastefully futuristic take on the train and bus...

They looked electric to me and even if they weren't, they easily could be made electric. Part of the video even details how it gets electricity at the stations, so I think they already are.

As far as bunching, they'd be no more prone to bunching than any trainset would be - don't let the name "bus" throw you, these are essentially trains and would be run much more like trains than like buses.

I think that in the U.S. the best use of these would be to add high-volume service in areas that already have well-defined but constricted corridors where there's room to add tracks and barriers, but not to add whole lanes and no money for tunnelling and objections to elevated paths.

I think the number of appropriate places in the U.S. for these is small, but they may still have a place, especially as shuttles between places that have sporadically high-volume traffic such as coventions centers where spendign a few tens of millions on trainsets and tracks/barriers is feasible, but not hundreds of millions for permanent elevated tracks or tunnels. What if New York had created some of these as a shuttle between Javits and the Subway system instead of their extremely expensive subway extension, for example.

[muppet]

non stop train idea:

• Video Link

[Nowhereman1280]

Originally Posted by emathias

They looked electric to me and even if they weren't, they easily could be made electric. Part of the video even details how it gets electricity at the stations, so I think they already are.

As far as bunching, they'd be no more prone to bunching than any trainset would be - don't let the name "bus" throw you, these are essentially trains and would be run much more like trains than like buses.

I think that in the U.S. the best use of these would be to add high-volume service in areas that already have well-defined but constricted corridors where there's room to add tracks and barriers, but not to add whole lanes and no money for tunnelling and objections to elevated paths.

I think the number of appropriate places in the U.S. for these is small, but they may still have a place, especially as shuttles between places that have sporadically high-volume traffic such as coventions centers where spendign a few tens of millions on trainsets and tracks/barriers is feasible, but not hundreds of millions for permanent elevated tracks or tunnels. What if New York had created some of these as a shuttle between Javits and the Subway system instead of their extremely expensive subway extension, for example.

No they are more prone to bunching because they don't have scalable capacity like a train. Bunching occurs like a traffic jam when you have too many individual vehicles on one ROW. Trains eliminate this by linking all the individual vehicles into a single train thus reducing bunching.

Ok so they are electric that just makes the trackwork all that much more expensive and eliminates the "bus" advantage altogether. Not to mention the additional engineering that will be required to keep the pylons that support them stiff enough to keep them from jumping the tracks. There is going to be so much over-engineering in these things. I predict China will tear them all out in 20 years when the maintenance costs become astronomical and labor rates skyrocket. These are akin to "guided buses" which are really just buses that can't be re-routed. Absolutely no gain and a ton of additional disadvantages.

[Onn]

I would think this could be distracting to drivers.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Nowhereman1280

.. Bunching occurs like a traffic jam when you have too many individual vehicles on one ROW. Trains eliminate this by linking all the individual vehicles into a single train thus reducing bunching.
...

Trains don't eliminate bunching. No one who has lived and taken commuter-hour trains in a major city would ever claim than trains eliminate bunching with a straight face.

Bunching occurs when events outside the control of the scheduling agency cause trips to take longer than scheduled, causing one train to slow down and vehicles behind it to "catch up" and cluster near it. Thus, there is a longer gap between the last non-delayed vehicle and the first delayed vehicle, followed by the delayed vehicle(s) and vehicles scheduled closest after it.

This happens with trains when loading/unloading takes too long, or when mechanical issues cause delays.

The reason bunching is more common and worse with buses is that that buses also have loading/unloading and mechanical delayes, PLUS, they have delays induced by traffic signals and car traffic, since they aren't grade-separated.

This Chinese system is (mostly) similar to trains, in that it reduces the traffic effect buses experience, so bunching would be most similar to that experienced by trains.

[big T]

Originally Posted by 10023

So instead of an elevated rail, they want to put the rails on the ground and then run the most expensive rolling stock ever conceived over it. Great.

Exactly what I was thinking. I'd love to see some kind of economic analysis on this -- my hunch is that for any kind of serious loads, it would actually end up more expensive than a good old elevated rail line (which by now we know how to build and operate relatively cost-effectively).
The main advantage of "bus" vs. rail is that you can theoretically have them go anywhere, so one way it might make sense is for a very widespread service areas with low frequencies (otherwise I think the cost of the vehicles would become prohibitive). I have to say seeing one of this beasts turn at an intersection would be freaking cool, though!

[M II A II R II K]

It could work better on highways with more than 2 lanes, so if it runs in the inner lanes so it wouldn't effect people entering and exiting.

[10023]

Originally Posted by big T

The main advantage of "bus" vs. rail is that you can theoretically have them go anywhere, so one way it might make sense is for a very widespread service areas with low frequencies (otherwise I think the cost of the vehicles would become prohibitive). I have to say seeing one of this beasts turn at an intersection would be freaking cool, though!

But the need for a specialized road with a particular width and tracks on the sides would negate this benefit entirely.