The Bus That Rides Above Traffic 371
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.
Looks nifty assuming no one crashes into the rail. (Score:2, Insightful)
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. ;)
Trucks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Do they have trucks in that area? Wouldn't that pose a minor issue?
Looks cool, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Looks nifty assuming no one crashes into the ra (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Looks cool, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
you'd have issues with things like turning traffic
From what I can see in the video (it's in Chinese but just judging from the graphics...) they seem to have thought of that. These mega-busses would be in the left-most lanes, and if they need to turn at an intersection, the lights at that intersection go red in all directions. The mega-bus then has the right of way to make a wide turn, cutting across many lanes safely because everyone is stopped.
I don't know if this is a good solution, mind you. First, the mega-bus has to be able to communicate-with/control the traffic lights. People have expectations about how traffic lights will work, and so adding in a new mode could confuse drivers. Pedestrians especially may start walking as soon as oncoming traffic gets a red light. (Do people in China obey the walk/don't-walk signals? They sure don't in any North American cities I've lived in!)
Similarly, the "truck height issue" seems to be addressed with flashing warnings on the back of the bus, and various sensors that detect positions of nearby vehicles and warn them somehow. But there are problems with such complex systems: they tend to handle changes in base assumptions very poorly (e.g. what happens when a bus needs to back up or there is construction along one of its routes). This is why tram/trolley-cars have fallen out of favor compared to generic busses: the gains you get from smart/efficient infrastructure make the system brittle to maintain.
This mega-bus plan sounds like a logistic nightmare. Which doesn't mean it couldn't work: awesome new ideas always seem difficult and crazy at first. The problem is that bad new ideas also sound difficult and crazy at first...
Re:Looks nifty assuming no one crashes into the ra (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Looks cool, but... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Looks nifty assuming no one crashes into the ra (Score:4, Insightful)
Chinese driving (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Looks nifty assuming no one crashes into the ra (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
The best of both worlds (Score:5, Insightful)
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".
Re:Looks nifty assuming no one crashes into the ra (Score:3, Insightful)
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?).
Re:Looks nifty assuming no one crashes into the ra (Score:2, Insightful)
I was with you until you said "no-contact". Now I don't believe your wife has ever been to China.
Re:Looks nifty assuming no one crashes into the ra (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Good idea and safe (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Looks nifty assuming no one crashes into the ra (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Shades of Oakland (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Terrorism (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Looks cool, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
It is much easier to imagine this product when you realize that China is still building its infrastructure and can do dang near anything it wants at this stage because the institutional inertia isn't present like it is in the rest of the developed world.
Re:Shades of Oakland (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Looks nifty assuming no one crashes into the ra (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Looks nifty assuming no one crashes into the ra (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Looks nifty assuming no one crashes into the ra (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shades of Oakland (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess it's cheaper if the buses carry their own platform instead of building platforms for hundreds of miles.
Re:Congestion? (Score:3, Insightful)
The main question is how you're supposed to see road signs and traffic lights when under there. As long as you know where your exit is, you can always wait until the thing is gone.