Hansen
You’ve probably seen the miniature concept version of this elevated-bus-tunnel at some point. The novel bus concept was designed to both solve the congestion issues that’s been plaguing China and to also provide mass-transit for hundreds of people at a time. The end result is an elevated bus that straddles two lanes of traffic, allowing it to ignore the congested roadways.
The concept has now evolved a couple more steps towards reality. The Transit Elevated Bus, or TEB for short, has been prototyped and can finally be seen in action, swallowing up cars as it goes down the road. The TEB has been designed to hold upwards to 300 passengers at a time, and is 22 meters long, 7.8 meters wide, and 4.8 meters tall. The dimensions of the TEB also only allows cars that are shorter than 2 meters tall, so not all road going vehicles can straddled by this humongous mass transit vehicle.
Based on the video, the TEB looks to be supported by eight semi-independent platforms with a total of 16 wheels. Presumably it was supported this way in order to attain the necessary mobility to navigate through roads, make turns, and possibly change lanes. The video only shows the TEB pulling up to an elevated bus platform, allowing camera equipped passengers to join in on the maiden test voyage.
It’s uncertain how the bus will handle navigating congested traffic that’s often filled with taller vehicles like semi-trucks and work vans. We’re also not sure how the rules of the road will be enforced (notice the stop light on the pillars?) as vehicles will have to navigate around and through the TEB. Regardless, we can’t wait to see this gigantic bus join the roadways, as it’ll most likely make riding the bus appealing.
(Source: Youtube)
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