Chinese Bus Allows Cars to Pass Underneath

By John Farrier in Auto & Transportation on Aug 5, 2010 at 10:35 am

China is trying to find a way to increase urban transportation without slowing down traffic. One proposal is an elevated bus that allows cars to pass beneath it:

Basically, it’s a huge bus that operates like a train on wheels, and is so tall that cars can drive right under it. Each bus is about two street lanes wide and 18 feet tall, according to Song Youzhou, the chairman of Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Company, which is building these enormous buses.

Video at the link.

Link via CrunchGear | Image: StapleNews


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  1. Craig
    Aug 5th, 2010 at 10:49 am

    Cool idea. I expect to see it implemented in real life around the same time we get our flying cars, personal jetpacks, and Moon elevator. It’s easy to design something like that on paper, but it will never be built.

  2. HK
    Aug 5th, 2010 at 11:15 am

    Hopefully no one needs to change lanes…

  3. Eil
    Aug 5th, 2010 at 11:19 am

    How does it turn corners?

  4. Lemonmann
    Aug 5th, 2010 at 11:47 am

    I love that the car in the picture is a Jeep :) In China.

  5. Kevinsky
    Aug 5th, 2010 at 12:08 pm

    This looks like the kind of wide-eyed futurism I used to see in Popular Science as a kid

  6. Craig
    Aug 5th, 2010 at 12:38 pm

    Changing lanes is punishable by 50 years hard labor in a coal mine. Same with turning corners.

  7. Vonskippy
    Aug 5th, 2010 at 1:22 pm

    What’s a few deaths here and there from craptastic engineering, when there’s billions of citizens still alive.

    China is like a little kid with power tools. Doesn’t really understand how they work, or what the safety factors are, but hey, they sound cool, so lets play.

  8. Craig
    Aug 5th, 2010 at 1:30 pm

    Vonskippy: I think they understand the safety factors; they just DON’T CARE about the safety of their citizens. They’re willing to sacrifice individuals for the common good. Citizens are expendable in China.

  9. Adam Lawrence
    Aug 5th, 2010 at 2:24 pm

    This is a tram, not a bus. Much smarter – imagine a bus driver swerving to avoid an accident with cars underneath…

  10. Morris
    Aug 5th, 2010 at 2:27 pm

    How would the bus turn, if cars are under it?

    The only way I could see this would work is if the bus is meant to move large numbers of people with very few stops. The idea would be that the bus takes a long time to load, so it could let traffic continue to flow while it takes its time loading passengers. While it is stopped it would be not different then an over pass or tunnel to the cars.

    Then when it is ready to move it would have to prevent cars from traveling under it. If they plan on moving the bus while cars are still under it, then they obvioulsy have some kind of magic the rest of the world is not aware of.

  11. neilo
    Aug 5th, 2010 at 3:14 pm

    I was just wondering how long it would take for someone driving a truck to be too tall and take out the upper deck.

  12. SuperCrap
    Aug 5th, 2010 at 10:51 pm

    This is not a bus it is a vehicle that runs on tracks, presumably a train, and as a train it starts to make a lot more sense. It would be a much, much more efficient solution than building an overhead rail line. The big problem seems like it would be that any car that gets in a fender bender with this thing is likely to be completely annihilated.

  13. Sean Jacobs
    Aug 6th, 2010 at 8:59 am

    I am not sure how safe this is. If someone is texting and driving and swerves to either direction they would cause damage to the train.. Causing everything to stop way longer than what it would normally do stopping to pick people up. it would be really cool if as the bus is slowing down to pick up a customer, to then raise to allow a car to get underneath

  14. Sean Jacobs
    Aug 6th, 2010 at 8:59 am

    I am not sure how safe this is. If someone is texting and driving and swerves to either direction they would cause damage to the train.. Causing everything to stop way longer than what it would normally do stopping to pick people up. it would be really cool if as the bus is slowing down to pick up a customer, to then raise to allow a car to get underneath

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  15. AMAAN
    Oct 9th, 2010 at 4:03 am

    The bus looks like a masive train oh and i love the look on the jeep :)
    ~


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