Chinese are Thinking Outside the Box, Literally

The STRADDLING BUS extends just outside the box space of two lanes, and does not impact those two lanes, keep as is, but this special bus travels overhead.  WATCH

In watching this video of something pretty cool, that looks like it is going to be seeing the light of day in China (where they NEED solutions), I thought "wow, now that is really thinking outside the box."

I discovered that a Chinese engineer Song Youzhou is the designer of the bus. He says that prototypes are being constructed. In an interview this week, he said that five Chinese cities — Nanyang, Qinhuangdao, Shenyang, Tianjin and Zhoukou — have signed contracts with his TEB Technology Development Company for pilot projects that will involve the construction of hundreds of miles of tracks starting this year.

As I looked it over a bit more,  I started having second thoughts, PRO and CON.

Lets start with the CONS

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CONS

PROS

• Could be difficult for drivers underneath to get used to their surroundings moving, or the illusions of stopping or moving.
• Might have significant impact with automobile accidents (same with light rail)
• Accidents could take place in its "tunnel" below and cause damage/delay
• Escape slides do not seem safe as they would empty into moving traffic lanes
• Pedestrian stations are too few, not designed for short distance trips. 
• Less flexible in route, fixed rail paths.
• Like a huge truck, turns will result in this wide bus far extending outside the two-lane path width (depending on length of car).
• Animation shows wide bus making corner on intersection left turn overpass, but this overpass will need to be very wide to do it.
• Cars underneath in a turn will see a chorded pathway defined by the train, not a round turn as shown in fake animation. Path edges perceived by drivers underneath will shift in unexpected ways, not following a curve.
• Before the "bus" turns at a corner, all traffic below must be stopped and cleared to prevent a turning movement conflict.
• There will be a "merge" traffic operations problem at the tiny entry / opening to the two lanes within the guardrail path.
• If a car is on the rail at opening of guardrail path, then the airbus is stuck, bus could impale car to guardrail if hit, >>blockage.
• Could run out of power if a long traffic jam occurs (since recharge battery powering only takes place at transfer stations).

Summary

• 1 of these could eliminate 40 Buses from the road, and increasing capacity for other cars
  
• Cost only 1/5th the cost of building a subway (still seems very high cost for just building an elevated car on existing ROW).
  
• Can be mobilized in 1 year vs 3 years for subway construction (only in China!).
• Spectacular views overhead (unless solar is used at top instead),
• Nice smooth ride, no stop and go nonsense (unless cars conflict with at-grade tracks).
• more environmentally friendly, no fumes, is electrically powered.

I think the idea has legs (pun intended).  However, if we are going to avoid all of the at-grade traffic problems that will inevitably occur with this new device, it would be necessary to build a more separated facility.  In my opinion, this thing FAILS on the corners, on the turns.  It seems like a perfect idea for any straight corridor.  So maybe the train could just operate on straight paths ONLY, and transfers could take place at perpendicular locations.  This would avoid the conflicts of curves mixed with at-grade traffic, which I think is a critical fail.  Its kind of like LRT, but elevated, but unlike LRT it has a much much bigger footprint that has to be accommodated.  This means loss of capacity for at-grade traffic, to stop nearly all traffic at intersections while this thing navigates a turn.

More newspaper articles on this development, click READ MORE

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