By: Bryan
With car ownership soaring in China, a new form of transportation must be put into use. With so many cars, there will be insane traffic jams all the time, not to mention egregious the amount of pollution. A city bus has recently been built that can carry more than a thousand passengers around the city without taking up any space on the road.
It’s an elevated bus that travels above the road, above all the cars, along a track. The bus spans two traffic lanes, and can carry 1400 passengers. It travels up to 40 miles per hour, and cars under 7 feet high can freely travel underneath. It runs on electricity, which means that this can take the place of 40 busses and cut fuel consumption, carbon emissions, and be less expensive than digging tunnels for subway systems.
Until recently, this idea has just been an idea. Last month, China built a real bus and tested it in Qinhunagdao. The bus is 72 feet long and 26 feet wide. Passengers board from elevated platforms, which is a tad bit safer than old concepts, where the bus would stop traffic and drop passengers down a slide in the middle of the road.
There are still a couple of viability issues that need to be worked out– like if a car is attempting to change lanes while the bus barrels by. Despite some problems in it’s design, it is a really cool concept I want to see work.
