
Chinese plan for “traffic-straddling bus” ended after 32 people were arrested - mantesso
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/world/asia/china-bus-road-straddling.html
======
tianshuo
Their only demo went back and forth for 200 meters, and nothing happened ever
after. SCAM SCAM SCAM SCAM, there is no way for the bus to turn except for
tearing down infrastructure and using 10 lanes. The creators made a fund out
of the project(promised 12% annualized return) that attracted a lot of small
investors and scammed them out of their money.

~~~
Retric
That does not actually kill the concept as long as you treat it like an above
ground subway system. The real limitation is the buses can't cross 4 way
intersections while cars are blocking their path and they can't travel around
obstructions.

Another options is you placed them on slightly elevated tracks and add bridges
over intersections, the larger problem is they need a lot of space above them
which means overpasses etc could limit placement without major investments and
it really just reinvents the monorail concept.

So, IMO it's unlikely to work in most cities, but there are a lot of city's
and you only need a few. Thus, it probably did not start as a scam even if
evolved into it.

~~~
mikeash
All real-world above ground light rail transit systems are able to turn and
don't require gigantic roads.

~~~
Retric
These could turn much like how trains turn, they are simply stuck following
the same road. Granted, they can't do a sharp turn with cars under them.

~~~
mikeash
Light rail is able to make 90-degree turns at intersections. Being stuck
following the same road is a pretty major problem.

~~~
Retric
I don't think this is a good solution, but _it 's not as bad as your
suggesting._

Again, these could be built to spin in place they simply can't turn sharply
when cars are under them. So, they could do a 90 degree turn as long as they
had a separate turn signal or bridge over traffic to do so.

However, even if they where limited to nearly strait lines many city's like
NYC for example have a lot of strait lines.

~~~
mikeash
Their concept looks like a multi-car train, not a single vehicle. Even as a
single vehicle, I don't see how it could turn in place without the wheels
being able to turn 90 degrees (sounds hard and expensive, but maybe I'm
overestimating it) or a rotating ring built into the intersection.

~~~
Retric
Ahh, ok here is what your missing. There is no axle between the wheels so they
could turn them independently. EX:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IpHQRKheac](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IpHQRKheac)
You can do something similar whenever you have independent motors for each
wheel.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJUogOpfcp8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJUogOpfcp8)
But, even without that you can do something like
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrasteer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrasteer)

So, yea it would be cheaper to build something that can't turn, but turning
radius is simply an engineering trade-off.

~~~
mikeash
I'm sure it's possible, but it seems impractical. In any case, the part where
they run as multi-car trains (as seen in the video in this article, for
example) seems to be the more significant problem for this.

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GordonS
If nothing else, this always seemed like utter _madness_ from a safety
perspective.

~~~
maze-le
I bet people had the same thing to say about cars in the early 20th century
(not without some justification though).

~~~
specializeded
Still have them today... Driving home last night, I tried to imagine how many
of the people next to me on the road were drunk while riding their 2 ton steel
horses home.

~~~
GordonS
As a Brit, the cavalier attitude to drink-driving in the USA never ceased to
amaze me.

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99_00
Interesting to to compare the comments now versus then

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12214675](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12214675)

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Animats
They actually built a prototype? Renders of that thing have been around for
years. I'd wondered if the track system would be designed into one of China's
new cities. It would have been the largest mobile passenger vehicle since the
German Imperial Gauge Railway.[1]

The CGI videos of it cornering show the sections bending, which only works in
CGI.[2][3]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitspurbahn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitspurbahn)

[2] [https://youtu.be/vaUTIIggEis?t=131](https://youtu.be/vaUTIIggEis?t=131)
[3] [https://youtu.be/vaUTIIggEis?t=138](https://youtu.be/vaUTIIggEis?t=138)

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gumby
BTW this isn't the original headline (the error in the rewrite caused me to
click on the title).

NYT would have written this in the indefinite present: "Chinese plan for
“traffic-straddling bus” ends with 32 arrests." Except it didn't end, and the
NYT headline says so.

~~~
Dylan16807
What do you mean? It ended a while ago.

~~~
gumby
Not sure what you mean. Either the project is effectively dead, or ended,
after the arrests, or its technically continuing though for all intents and
purposes is over. Or it ended a while ago and that's why it's a scam?

The article as up right now has a title that says it's over, but did not have
the same headline when I added my comment :-(. Also says it's effectively over
as a result of the arrests which it didn't before. Unfortunately the NYT does
not have a policy of always indicating edits. So this may have made my comment
look odd.

However FWIW the NYT typically won't use the past tense, and in particular the
perfect, for topics which are ongoing. US Civil war? Sure. Bernie Madoff?
Possibly, possibly not, depending. People having just been arrested gets a
present, or at best imperfect tense.

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rasz
Bicycle sharing companies are next I guess, give it a year or two.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdsb2wwn-7g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdsb2wwn-7g)

~~~
averagewall
What worries me about the bike shares is they all take a 100-200 rmb
refundable deposit from each user. That's an unsecured interest free
"crowdsourced" loan! If the company collapses, it's riders' deposits that'll
go down the toilet.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
There was an article in chinadaily a while back in how the government was
forcing the bike companies to deposit these deposits in a special account. So
it might not be as bad as that, but I wouldn't expect to get my deposit back
either.

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lawless123
A tram would be much safer and probably cause less disruption.

~~~
astrodust
A "tram" is also a proven technology that doesn't get investors.

A traffic straddling bus is one of those "so crazy it just might work" ideas
that gets funding.

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tyingq
Intersections and cars under the bus wanting to turn left or right would be
interesting. Dedicated turn lanes helps a little, but you would have to trail
or lead the bus to see them coming soon enough.

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ams6110
From the photos it looks like this thing runs on tracks. OK, this concept was
invented a century ago in cities like Chicago, it's called an Elevated Train.

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diyseguy
Too bad, I was picturing this as another way for Amazon to deliver packages or
perhaps snacks to people (while waiting in traffic)

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jlebrech
why don't we have low altitude blimps? ones that pick up a car and drop it off
between the car's destination and the next customer? or pull it by cable using
a filtering bike of sorts?

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macawfish
If this was a scam... what does that make the hyperloop?

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timwaagh
still seems a decent idea to me. maybe something went wrong in the execution
here, but it could be a solution for densely packed historical urban centers
that do not wish to tear down too many buildings.

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Luc
"China's Vision", I mean, come on. There seems to be some opinion leaking into
the title.

~~~
bhouston
It was just the vision of a bunch of hustler/entrepreneurs. It seemed too easy
to hit with large vehicles and a death trap for vehicles underneath it.

An elevated rail system seemed so much easier and without the difficulties
that this introduced.

But an elevated rail system required significantly more investment thus it had
to be city sanctioned in a large way, rather than the minimal investments this
required.

~~~
wavefunction
I imagine the turning radius for this thing is significant enough that you'd
have to tear out existing intersections and even push the buildings back from
where they exist now.

Just so it can turn. I think in this specific comparison elevated light rail
would be significantly less-disruptive and cheaper too.

~~~
evansj
They just need to install a giant turntable at every intersection!

~~~
reality_czech
It would be better if they installed two turntables and a microphone.

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GoToRO
Just ban cars. It's not that hard. We banned horses, why not cars?

~~~
nickrio
I thought horses was banned because they ... produce some unwanted mass on the
road which hard to clean?

Cars on the other hand, don't do that at all.

Maybe that's the reason why cars are not banned.

~~~
antris
>I thought horses was banned because they ... produce some unwanted mass on
the road which hard to clean? > >Cars on the other hand, don't do that at all.

Cars do it, but instead of it being a hard to clean mass, it's a nearly-
impossible-to-clean toxic gas that kills thousands of people every year.

~~~
nickrio
I actually agree with what you said.

What I mean is that the "nearly-impossible-to-clean toxic gas" is also
"nearly-impossible-to-see" when in the air.

See, that's why they're not banned, because people "Don't see" the problem.

If cars needs to take a sold mass smelly hot dump every few miles too, they
were long banned.

