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Solution to China’s month-long traffic jam: ‘Super bus’ allows cars to zip beneath
China's new 3D fast bus that can carry passengers above street level and straddle the lanes below to allow traffic to pass freely underneath has just passed the security assessment made by professional organizations and will be put into pilot use in Beijing's Mentougou District by the end of 2011.
It is 4.4 meters to 4.5 meters high with two levels that allows passengers board on the upper level while other vehicles lower than 2 meters can freely go through underneath.
The bus is designed to straddle two lanes at a time to let traffic pass underneath both when it is stopped and when it is in motion. In fact, it is more like a massive double-wide tram than a bus, with a fixed route and physical connection to the city's municipal power grid.
Powered by electricity and solar energy, the zero-emission 3D bus can reach speed up to an average of 60 to 80 kilometers an hour, faster than current buses and can link well with the bus stations and overpasses while not affecting the traffic.
The cost of producing this bus system is 50 million Yuan (about 7.4 million U.S. dollars) per kilometers, which is roughly one-tenth the cost of building a subway of the same length. And 40 kilometers can be constructed a year, while three years is needed to build a subway line with the same length.
