Here come the megabuses (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

China is a country of extremes. The world’s most populous nation; the world’s fastest-growing major economy, the world’s biggest exporter. It has the world’s longest sea bridge, the world’s fastest train and is the world’s biggest market for cars. The list goes on and on. And its record breaking ways look like they are set to continue for a while yet.

Take that last point. In the mid 80s the country only produced a few thousand cars and hardly anyone actually owned one. Now, it is the world’s largest producer of cars and the world’s largest consumer. Last year, 18 million vehicles were sold, dwarfing the 12.7 million sold in the US. And this sudden explosion has meant a massive rise in one thing: traffic.

However, the ever expanding urban population needs to keep moving and so the government has turned to another extreme solution: the mega bus.

“China is generally looking very hard at new public transport systems” says John Austin, an independent public transport who has worked in Europe, Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The advantage of buses, he says, is that they can be quick – and cheap – to install, compared to other transport systems, like light railways.

Massive moves

Take the 3D Fast Bus from the Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Company. This prototype behemoth could carry up to 1,000 passengers its designers believe. But its most innovative feature is not its size, but its design. It is designed to skip traffic problems by straddling the road, allowing it to cruise over gridlocked traffic or allowing traffic to flow underneath it when it is stopped. Passengers ride in a cabin 5m above the ground, on wheels supported on streamlined stilts. Its designers say the electric bus could reduce traffic jams by up to 30%, and cost only 10% of the price of a subway to build.
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more: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120301-here-come-the-megabuses




Not just China, but Brazil, Switzerland, Australia...

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Bloody hell - the BBC is blocking me from this, because I'm British!

I get:

We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes.

I don't care that it's not funded by the licence fee. I don't care if it wants to show me an ad on it. They don't worry me.