CHINA TOPIX

03/28/2024 09:04:46 pm

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Monster Elevated Bus in China Looks Like it’s Eating Cars

Will it work?

Lunch: China's incredible TEB looks like it's eating cars.

The world's largest passenger bus will stand 4.5 meters tall and will feature a gaping "mouth" that allows cars to pass underneath it. This monster is being touted as a practical solution to the hellish traffic problems plaguing many of China's cities such as Beijing.

A scale model of the really strange looking "Transit Elevated Bus" or TEB debuted at the recent 19th China Beijing International High-Tech Expo.

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A uniquely Chinese solution to China's infamous traffic jams, TEB is basically a bus that drives over traffic using its own road. Its maker, Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co., Ltd, said TEB can carry as many as 1,400 passengers per trip, making it the world's largest bus.

TEB has two levels: passengers travel on the upper half while the lower half has a massive cut-out that allows cars less than two meters tall to travel through it. It will bestride two lanes on a road to be specially built for its use.

Its maker claims the "bus" will reduce traffic jams by up to 30 percent. It also said is will conduct the first live test of an actual TEB in the second half of this year. Venue for this test will be Qinhuangdao City in northern China's Hebei Province,

TEB will be powered by electric motors and solar energy and can reach a speed of 60 km/h. It might cost $72 million to build just one bus and the specially-built 40 kilometer-long highway it's to travel on.

"With a carrying capacity of 1,200 people at a time, the TEB has the same functions as the subway while its cost of construction is less than one fifth that of the subway. Its construction can be finished in one year," said Bai Zhiming, engineer in charge of the TEB project.

A video of this crazy bus can be viewed here.

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