It’s not a new idea, the straddle bus. It dates back to the 1960s.
But if a prototype bus in a pilot project in China is successful, highway engineers working on urban roads may have to throw out their design templates.
Recent Chinese reports have said a prototype is being built in the city of Chengzou for a pilot project being set up on the streets of Qinhuangdao, a coastal city about 300km east of Beijing, by the end of this summer.
The bus’s main body glides above the road surface at 60kph on a set of rails and straddles two vehicle lanes. Also called a land-air bus, it is being built by Beijing-based Transit Explore Bus. The bus will glide over vehicles that are less than 2m high.
“The biggest advantage is that the bus will save lots of road space,” Song Youzhou, the project’s chief engineer China’s government-backed news agency Xinua. He said the articulated buses will carry up to 1,400 people and – importantly – would be constructed for only 20% of the cost of similar systems carrying that many passengers, in particular underground trains.
One land-air bus could replace 40 conventional buses, he said.
But if a prototype bus in a pilot project in China is successful, highway engineers working on urban roads may have to throw out their design templates.
Recent Chinese reports have said a prototype is being built in the city of Chengzou for a pilot project being set up on the streets of Qinhuangdao, a coastal city about 300km east of Beijing, by the end of this summer.
The bus’s main body glides above the road surface at 60kph on a set of rails and straddles two vehicle lanes. Also called a land-air bus, it is being built by Beijing-based Transit Explore Bus. The bus will glide over vehicles that are less than 2m high.
“The biggest advantage is that the bus will save lots of road space,” Song Youzhou, the project’s chief engineer China’s government-backed news agency Xinua. He said the articulated buses will carry up to 1,400 people and – importantly – would be constructed for only 20% of the cost of similar systems carrying that many passengers, in particular underground trains.
One land-air bus could replace 40 conventional buses, he said.
