Bus by name, train by nature: A new Chinese machine has demonstrated a unique way to move passengers from station to station.
The machine’s Chinese name, pronounced Bā Tiě, translates loosely to ‘Iron Bar’. Its manufacturer, Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Company, has chosen to give it the English name, Transit Elevated Bus, or TEB.
But it runs along dedicated tracks, and stops at elevated stations to pick up and drop off its passengers, so we here at Rail Express like to think of it as the world’s newest (and maybe wackiest) form of light rail.
First described at the Beijing International High-Tech Expo in 2010, the first prototype, dubbed TEB-1, was launched for testing on August 2, 2016 in Qinhuangdau, in China’s north-east.
The TEB straddles two road lanes and transports passengers in a vessel two metres above the road surface, allowing cars to pass underneath it.
Its creator, Song Youzho, believes an articulated TEB could replace around 40 bus services along its route, without interfering with the car traffic beneath it.
Currently designed to allow for vehicles under 2.1 metres to pass underneath it, the TEB is unlikely to be popular with the trucking industry, or with four-wheel drive owners with roof racks, for that matter.
Australian transport blogger Daniel Bowen this week pointed out the 2.1 metre clearance also wouldn’t work well with bike-friendly neighbourhoods.
Silly straddling “bus” (on rails) has only 2.1m clearance? Minimum safe vertical clearance for cyclists is 2.5m! pic.twitter.com/XviwX0rmGW
— Daniel Bowen (@danielbowen) August 3, 2016
But it sure is fun.
Check out the video below, and let us know what you think in the comments section.