Futuristic straddling bus allows cars running underneath

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
And if the bus turns and the cars don't ... Or maybe two cars get into an accident under the bus? What happens if you are the middle car and the ones in front and behind you want to continue with the bus?

Why not just carry the cars on top? That is, when the "bus" (a flatbed carrier) stops, cars get on or off front or back. That might be more fuel efficient.

John
 

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
Well if it will get more stupid people off the road and on to public transportation where they belong I say give it a go! :cool:
 

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
And if the bus turns and the cars don't ... Or maybe two cars get into an accident under the bus? What happens if you are the middle car and the ones in front and behind you want to continue with the bus?
John
The same thing they do now. The middle vehicle stops and waits for the overhead bus to move off and the vehicles behind it sit and wait until that vehicle has gotten off the road.

Why not just carry the cars on top? That is, when the "bus" (a flatbed carrier) stops, cars get on or off front or back. That might be more fuel efficient.
I think the whole point is to let through traffic on the roads continue largely as normal while moving people above it all. Not transport vehicles with people in them. If you need to take the bus while driving your vehicle because you are too cheap, poor or lazy, distracted or dumb to drive somewhere yourself you probably don't belong on the road to begin with and should be riding the bus. :rolleyes:
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
Well, out in Sawyer, ND it may work. Ever drive in downtown Detroit?

Of course, where the nearest cross-street is 10 miles away, a carrier will save fuel.

John
 

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
Well, out in Sawyer, ND it may work. Ever drive in downtown Detroit?

Of course, where the nearest cross-street is 10 miles away, a carrier will save fuel.

John
I've drove downtown Minneapolis and Chicago pulling loaded 20' foot trailers and large cargo trucks in rush hour traffic a number of times so yea I know the traffic. Just because I live where it wide open and peaceful doesn't mean I haven't been anywhere. :rolleyes:
 

crutschow

Joined Mar 14, 2008
34,280
And if the bus turns and the cars don't ... Or maybe two cars get into an accident under the bus? What happens if you are the middle car and the ones in front and behind you want to continue with the bus?...............
The lanes underneath the bus obviously have to follow any turns that the bus tracks make.
I don't see any real problem with that.

If cars underneath get in a accident then the bus may have to stop until the accident is cleaned up.
If the cars aren't touching the bus after the accident then the bus can likely continue on.

If you want to leave the lane and you are beneath the bus with cars in front and back of you, then it could be a problem if the traffic is traveling the same speed as the bus. You'd have to do a little planning ahead or slow the lane down until you can exit at the back of the bus (likely with much honking a few 1-finger salutes from the cars in back of you).
 

ronv

Joined Nov 12, 2008
3,770
Don't understand. :confused:
The right-of-way for trains is likely often too narrow for anything but a single or perhaps a 2-lane road.
Even a single high speed lane would be welcome in a lot of places. Or maybe a low speed one from New York to Washington.:D
I forgot we don't have many high speed trains.:rolleyes:
 

BR-549

Joined Sep 22, 2013
4,928
Possible?.......yes. But totally idiotic.
30 minutes on any crowded road shows that most couldn't understand the concept.
Individual units interacting with it, would compound the congestion.

Look how many have learned to accelerate on the on ramp. That one always got me. They go up half way, stop and look for traffic.

And of course we know the left lane is for site seeing.

Why mess with such a beautiful thing?
 

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
If you want to leave the lane and you are beneath the bus with cars in front and back of you, then it could be a problem if the traffic is traveling the same speed as the bus. You'd have to do a little planning ahead or slow the lane down until you can exit at the back of the bus (likely with much honking a few 1-finger salutes from the cars in back of you).
I see it as the bus and the road are largely two separate systems other than at an intersection where the bus rail crosses a roadway so how is the movement of the bus of any concern or effect on the traffic underneath it other than when it's crossing a roadway.

Are people who are behind me in their own vehicles going to ignore my brake lights and blinkers that indicate that I am slowing down to merge out of a lane and rear end me and each other because there is some large moving object above us going a similar speed? o_O

As far as I know the bus system above the road will not change the basic rules of the road that independent traffic has to follow. :rolleyes:
 

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
Look how many have learned to accelerate on the on ramp. That one always got me. They go up half way, stop and look for traffic.
Well to be honest in a lot of large cities they have stop lights and even automated gates at the ends of the on ramps that pretty much prevent a person from using the whole on-ramp to get up to a matching speed with the main flow of traffic. If that's what a person is familiar with the unimpeded on ramp is a rather foreign concept to learn to use.
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,079
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/world/asia/china-bus-road-straddling.html
HONG KONG — Maybe a giant tram rolling over pesky cars clogging the streets wasn’t the answer to China’s traffic congestion woes. A Chinese inventor’s plan to develop such a vehicle, called a “traffic-straddling bus,” has been effectively killed after 32 people from an investment company that backed the project were arrested.
...
Chinese news outlets were harshly critical, saying the exercise was little more than a fraud from the start.

“The truth is the bus was a fake science investment scam, with no scientific innovation,” a Beijing News op-ed said on Monday. “The test was nothing more than a trick to attract investors.”
 

Glenn Holland

Joined Dec 26, 2014
703
Being a 30 year veteran of the mass transit industry here in S.F., I can tell you the "Devil's In The Details".

For starters, the wheels of the bus must have their own traction motors and brakes plus a few other technicalities. Here in my transit agency, we've got a fairly steady stream of "pull ins" (operators taking a train out of service and into the garage) for all sorts of mundane things like doors and the variable height steps used on rail vehicles.

Any exotic vehicle will most likely be infested with so many gremlins that keeping them in service will be a nightmare. :eek:
 
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