'Straddling bus' to ride above cars in Beijing
By Zhang Xuanchen |
August 26, 2010, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
BEIJING will start trial operation next year of a "straddling bus" that can carry 1,400 passengers and allow other vehicles to pass under it.
The capital government has approved its assessment report and started manufacturing the bus and a 9-kilometer route along the West Sixth Ring Road in Mentougou District, where the trial operation is planned to start in July, Beijing Times reported.
The bus's manufacturer, China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corporation, said it would take three month to finish making a sample bus, which was 4 meters high and looks like an elevated train bestriding a road, allowing vehicles lower than 2 meters to go through it under the passenger level.
If the trial operation proves successful, a total of 189 kilometers of route will be built, connecting Mentougou with the capital's airport, said Song Youzhou, the inventor of the bus with Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co.
The bus can speed up to 60 kilometers per hour, faster than most ordinary buses in Beijing, and carry 1,200 to 1,400 passengers at a time without creating any road congestion. At that rate, the bus could slash up to 30 percent of the overcrowded city's traffic jams.
The price of building one kilometer of bus line would be 50 million yuan (US$ 7.3 million), which is only 10 percent the cost of a subway line. And it would take less time to build the lines.
The bus will run on solar energy gathered from its rooftop and electricity through connection to the city's power grid, making it eco-friendly.
The capital government has approved its assessment report and started manufacturing the bus and a 9-kilometer route along the West Sixth Ring Road in Mentougou District, where the trial operation is planned to start in July, Beijing Times reported.
The bus's manufacturer, China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corporation, said it would take three month to finish making a sample bus, which was 4 meters high and looks like an elevated train bestriding a road, allowing vehicles lower than 2 meters to go through it under the passenger level.
If the trial operation proves successful, a total of 189 kilometers of route will be built, connecting Mentougou with the capital's airport, said Song Youzhou, the inventor of the bus with Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co.
The bus can speed up to 60 kilometers per hour, faster than most ordinary buses in Beijing, and carry 1,200 to 1,400 passengers at a time without creating any road congestion. At that rate, the bus could slash up to 30 percent of the overcrowded city's traffic jams.
The price of building one kilometer of bus line would be 50 million yuan (US$ 7.3 million), which is only 10 percent the cost of a subway line. And it would take less time to build the lines.
The bus will run on solar energy gathered from its rooftop and electricity through connection to the city's power grid, making it eco-friendly.
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