[The makers of the vehicle, known as the
Transit Elevated Bus, declared the ride down a few hundred yards of street on
Tuesday a success, but the controlled conditions hardly reflected the gnarled
unpredictability of Chinese traffic. Television news showed the bus, resembling
a goliath bug, edging forward down tracks while two cars nestled side by side
underneath.]
By Chris Buckley And Emily Feng
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A prototype of the
Transit Elevated Bus, which is 72 feet long and 26 feet wide,
going for a test run in
the Chinese seaside city of Qinhuangdao on Tuesday.
Credit Luo
Xiaoguang/Xinhua, via Associated Press
|
BEIJING — If you’re driving in a Chinese city in the
none-too-distant future and your car is engulfed in a smooth, humming metallic
belly, don’t panic. It may feel like an alien abduction, but probably it’s only
a colossal, street-straddling bus.
The idea of a bus so large, high and long
that it could virtually levitate above congested streets seemed surreal when
presented at an expo in Beijing in May. But it came a step closer to reality
this week, when a prototype went for an experimental spin in Qinhuangdao, a
seaside city in northern China.
The makers of the vehicle, known as the
Transit Elevated Bus, declared the ride down a few hundred yards of street on
Tuesday a success, but the controlled conditions hardly reflected the gnarled
unpredictability of Chinese traffic. Television news showed the bus, resembling
a goliath bug, edging forward down tracks while two cars nestled side by side
underneath.
“I wanted to officially show people that this
is entirely possible and that the bus can be up and running,” Song Youzhou, the
designer of the straddling bus, said in a telephone interview from Qinhuangdao.
“We were inspecting and testing the vehicle
for a range of functions, like ignition, braking and other processes, to see if
they all work together and there are no problems,” Mr. Song said. But a full
trial run will not take place until the middle of next year in a city in
central China, he said.
To supporters, floating buses offer a
solution to the traffic that chokes China’s cities. The prototype is 72 feet
long and 26 feet wide. Most important, it is 16 feet high, creating room for a
tunnel more than 6 feet high between the wheels for cars. Commuters will be
able to float above two lanes of traffic, whisked on rails from one specially
built elevated stop to another.
“The invention of the Transit Elevated Bus is
considered as a revolution for the environment-friendly public transportation,”
the maker of the bus, TEB Technology, says on its website.
“No more traffic jams,” it says with some
optimism.
But skeptics say the bus is a magnificent
example of a solution to a problem that is likely to create even more problems.
After the test run on Tuesday, China’s
internet filled with questions. How would the bus negotiate turns? What about
the many drivers who jump in and out of lanes? And what about vehicles like
trucks that are too large to fit under the bus?
“It might be a fantasy to deploy the
‘elevated bus’ on existing urban road infrastructure,” Beijing Daily said about
the idea in June. “It’s very impractical.”
It noted that the giant buses would not be
able to use the bridges and overpasses in the capital city.
“Even if the ‘elevated bus’ is deployed on
ordinary urban roadways, it will need special groundwork, otherwise the roads
will be crushed to smithereens before long,” the paper said.
Mr. Song said that a full bus would have four
connected carriages and be able to carry 1,200 passengers, which may make
getting on and off an adventure in itself. An animated video from the bus maker
shows passengers using podlike elevators that also have a sci-fi feel.
Turning at broad intersections would not pose
a problem, Mr. Song added. The cars underneath the bus would come to a stop and
wait while the bus curved the corner.
“Underneath the bus, traffic lights will be
coordinated with the traffic lights on the road so that cars are notified,” he
said.
Even drivers hardened to the mayhem on
China’s roads might be unsettled by the idea of sitting under a bus while red
and green lights flash.
“This may create some psychological pressure
for motorists,” Zhang Jianwu, a professor at the Institute of Automotive
Engineering at Shanghai Jiaotong University,told China Youth Daily last month.
But Mr. Song had something to reassure people
worried about the newfangled technology.
“At the moment, we can’t use driverless
technology on the bus,” he said. “We have to have humans at the wheel.”
Follow Chris Buckley @ChuBailiang and Emily
Feng @EmilyZFeng on Twitter.