China's once-celebrated Traffic Elevated Bus (TEB) (reported here) has been left abandoned in the middle of a Hebei city road, not having moved once in over two months. Originally touted as the futuristic solution to urban traffic jams, the "straddling bus" is currently causing them.
A local reporter recently checked up on "the future of public transportation" at its testing site in Qinhuangdao, only to find it forgotten in a rusted garage, covered in dust. The bus is currently being looked after by a pair of old security guards who reluctantly admit that they've been forgotten about as well.
http://shanghaiist.com/2016/12/05/straddling_bus_abandoned.php
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previously: Straddle Bus 'Eats' Cars As it Speeds Down the Highway
Shanghaiist reports that an example of the TEB-1 (Transit Elevated Bus) has been built and has been tested on a 300 m track. The bus is of an unusual design: 7.8 m wide, its wheels rest both sides of a road, with the main part of the body high above street level so that other traffic can pass beneath. It is electrically powered. Passengers enter and leave via raised platforms. Its capacity is variously reported as 300 or 1200 passengers.
additional coverage:
- TechCrunch
- official news agency Xinhua
- Washington Post
- video by Descubre tu Mundo
- video by ELive Now
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:56PM
Well, it did seem like an "over the top" sort of solution.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:58PM
I can't really imagine what it'd be like to drive under one of these, or have one drive over you, but I think it might be something like walking along a 2 foot wide plank of wood 100 feet in the air. It should be fairly safe and easy to do - after all, you can do it with the plank on the ground with no trouble. But put in a different context, and you'll likely be frozen with fear.
I imagine it'd be fairly easy to lose all track of your speed, as well. It's not like going through a tunnel, where the tunnel walls are stationary. You'll have your actual speed, relative to the road, and then you'll have your speed relative to the bus. If the bus slows, you'll feel like you've sped up. Confusing, to say the least.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 24 2016, @10:05PM
Pair it with self-driving cars! They know no fear!
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by Type44Q on Saturday December 24 2016, @10:50PM
But put in a different context, and you'll likely be frozen with fear.
Just like driving next to a huge tandem-trailer semi; in other words, not at all.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday December 25 2016, @12:08AM
Ever seen a blow-out on a semi? Many bikers refer to the area beside a semi as the "death zone".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 25 2016, @12:19AM
That thing turned out to be a bogus plastic model built specifically to commit investment fraud - there is functioning part in it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 25 2016, @02:48AM
> ... a bogus plastic model built specifically to commit investment fraud
Was it 3D printed? The barn it's parked in would be large enough to hold the printer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 25 2016, @04:21PM
This explains the p2p investment scam, it's widespread in China,
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-23/china-s-super-bus-exposes-dark-side-of-p2p-lending [bloomberg.com]
Just as international excitement began to build, however, the TEB story went off the rails. According to China's state media organs, previously big boosters of the project, the TEB was little more than a publicity stunt -- one of the dozens of peer-to-peer lending scams that have duped retail Chinese investors in recent years by promising unreal annual returns.
The bus bust has thus become a symbol of a different -- and far more damaging -- kind of Chinese ingenuity. The TEB's promoters promised investors 12 percent returns on their money, despite the fact that the prototype bus seemed likely to tip over, couldn't clear most urban bridges and wasn't tall enough to accommodate most vehicles underneath it. They could get away with it in part because those kinds of numbers are par for the course in China's P2P lending industry, which averaged returns of 13.3 percent in 2015.
The "designer" or "engineer" of the tall bus was actually a property developer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 26 2016, @04:37AM
Anyone with money in China is a 'property developer'. Not many other places to park you money over there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 25 2016, @10:34AM
It was engineered, not reverse-engineered. This is why it doesn't work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 25 2016, @08:53PM
Woo ha only americans can build stuff woot woot USA a-okay
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 26 2016, @04:14AM
how is it blocking traffic if it is parked in a garage?
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday December 27 2016, @02:42PM
The garage is in the middle of the road : /
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