[Bluengel180]

Overhead power lines, bridges and box trucks beware: The giant, lane-straddling bus Chinese engineers hope will someday conquer that country’s legendary traffic by swallowing it whole is one step closer to cruising over rush hours from Los Angeles to Boston.

The Straddling Bus is one part monorail, one part monster truck. As the incredibly awesome illustration above shows, the extra-wide, extra-tall bus straddles two lanes of traffic, allowing passenger cars and small trucks to pass underneath.

It’s the brainchild of Song Youzhou of Shenzhen, who announced yesterday the formation of a U.S. company that will develop business links stateside. U.S. Elevated High-Speed Bus (Group) is looking for manufacturers to build the vehicle and representatives to sell it.

“The word ‘revolutionary’ is so overused, but this new bus actually is revolutionary,” said company spokesman Mark Shieh. “Relative to the cost of a subway line or other rail transit, our bus delivers extraordinary value. Aside from the low cost, the time for construction is about one third that for a subway.”


The company plans to start work in China as soon as 2011. According to Song, the buses carry “hundreds” of passengers and will be powered by electricity with a little help from roof-mounted solar panels. Buses ride eight feet above traffic on rails or painted yellow lines outside of car-traffic lanes. They travel over traffic at speeds ranging from 25 to 50 mph and are sure to scare the bejeezus out of old ladies in Sebring convertibles.

“An ideal partner for us would be a RV, motor home, aircraft, train or bus manufacturer with production facilities in the U.S. who is looking to diversify,” said Shieh. “We hope to leverage not only their manufacturing capabilities, but also their domestic and export sales channels. In return, we’ll deliver the design and fully developed concept.”

Our first suggestion to the leadership team: Change the name. “Straddling” might be one of the last words we want to associate with public transportation. Our second suggestion: Pay for translation instead of suggesting that we view the Straddling Bus website with Google Translate, as it currently extols the virtues of the vehicle’s “Stereoscopic fast Palestinian” drivetrain.

[mmxylorider]

Wow! I hope the inventor has given thought to modern day roads which have quite a few overpasses over it on a good stretch.

[Mpower]

Neat idea if you think about it. Will work in new townships designed from ground up. Fitting it into an existing city will be a challenge.

[anjan_c2007]

Thats a brilliant idea from a fertile thinking process. Apart from the facilitation longitudinal movements of traffic, controlled facilitation for lateral movements too can be incorporated in the design.

[prince_pervez]

Nice concept this. As long as it poses no threat to the existing on road movements it is brilliant.

[avishar]

Nice innovative thinking.And knowing the Chinese i expect you will see one of these sooner in a chinese city than an American one.

But what happens in a crossing?It will be tricky with cars crossing lanes.

[mmxylorider]

Originally Posted by avishar

But what happens in a crossing?It will be tricky with cars crossing lanes.

I would assume it to be similar to lane crossing with trams. As long as this behemoth runs on rails flush with the road.

[sandeepmdas]

What would be the "fuel" efficiency? I understand this thing is powered by electricity and IMO it needs more than a thousand BHP. Also consider the fact that it is going to be used in a high-cycle "start-stop" operation.

The solar panels can light-up the interiors, anything more would require utility power. IMO it is just like the windmills, it looks like a green solution, but actually not.

[Fantasy]

great idea, at least on paper. i'm willing to bet this thing would unfortunately be nothing more than a hazard in reality. can you imagine how many people would drive right into it, or fail to see it coming up beside them?

[mayuresh]

Old thread, though I noticed this when I came across the following video presentation (which, too is old now).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv8_W2PA0rQ

Great concept, though not sure what the current state is, given the news is close to being 3 year old.

[honeybee]

It's surely innovative, however it doesn't look practical to implement. Most likely the idea will freeze at the concept level. Considering the economic problems in implementing this idea, I don't believe anyone would hurry towards implementing it, unless maybe the Chinese government.

And, what about traffic jams of these monstrosities? Will there be an option for cars to then climb up onto their roofs and travel ahead? Sort of a tunnel underneath and an overbridge above?