An overarching solution

By Nick Pryke

China has always taken pride in wearing its badge of all things ‘epic’: from the Great Wall and the Terracotta Warriors to the South China Mall in Dongguan – nothing is too big for the Asian supergiant. And now, it seems the same is true for its traffic jams – with the world’s biggest being recorded in August of this year, lasting nine days and clogging up over 100 kilometres of road from the outskirts of Beijing to the border of Inner Mongolia. And while this incident unfortunately proved that things can, in fact, “stretch from here to Mongolia”, it also unveiled something far more worrying – that China’s capital can’t support its population when it comes to transport infrastructure.

“Another strength of the straddling bus is its short construction life; it only takes a year to build 40 kilometres, whereas building 40 kilometres of subways takes three years at best.”

On the surface, China's rise appears to be a story about breakneck development taking place throughout the country. Indeed, according to Forbes, if you add together China's total building construction numbers, you end up with a city the size of Brisbane being built every month. Conflating this, around 20 million Chinese people - a number slightly less than the total population of Australia - are moving from rural to urban areas every year. Car sales are rising month-on-month by around 20 percent, with figures an astonishing 55.7 percent above the corresponding 2009 figure.

But that's far from the end of it. Zhang Jianfei, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and Vice President of the Plan and Research Institute of the Ministry of Communications, speaking to China.org, attributed the rapid increase of automobiles to an increase in income and a continuing decrease in the price of automobiles. Moreover, he also cited the price of housing near the heart of the city as being especially high - roughly US$1209 per square metre - meaning that residents moving to the suburbs have little problem with buying further vehicles to commute into the city.

The SARS epidemic earlier this decade also precipitated the acceleration of automobile ownership, and cars have since become a status symbol often more highly prized than purchasing a home.

New ideas

Unfortunately, the development of roads has failed to match the accelerated use of personal transport, resulting in some of the worst congestion the country has ever had to deal with. And while Jianfei puts forward a few proposals to combat the crisis - including ramping up parking fees, adding more parallel roads and developing a better subway system - a Chinese engineer thinks he's found a better, and far more futuristic, answer, in the bigger cities at least.

Chairman of Shenzen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co. Ltd, Song Youzhou unveiled his plan at the Beijing's 13^th  International High-tech Expo in May this year. Known as the 'straddling bus', its premise is simple: act as a hybrid between a bus and light-rail train that can pick passengers up on standard roads while the traffic behind it passes underneath, free from any interruption. And, according to Youzhou, not only is it low-carbon and highly-efficient, but if everything goes according to plan, it could reduce the now dreaded traffic jam scenario by 20 to 30 percent within its relative catchment areas. Running at a steady 40 kilometres per hour, the complete vehicle can carry up to 1200 passengers, with 300 in each cart - a far from shabby dent on an otherwise car-indulgent population.

"Another strength of the straddling bus is its short construction life: it only takes a year to build 40 kilometres," explains Youzhou. "Whereas building 40 kilometres of subway takes three years at best. Also, the straddling bus will not need the large parking lot that normal buses demand. It can park at its own stop without affecting the passage of cars, with huge skylights that will eliminate passengers' sense of depression when entering."

The fully electric bus, designed to roll on small stilts within tracks between the lanes of traffic, would also charge itself in a completely different way to anything previously engineered. Along each route, charge stations are positioned in such a way that there is always a charging post in contact with the bus. As its main load is starting and stopping at each station, the bus runs on high-power, fast-discharge supercapacitors - with the remaining energy after leaving the station sufficient to see the bus to the next stop.

But what about potential collisions with other motorists, I hear you ask? Well, Youzhou has got that sorted too. "The ultrasonic waves put forth from the end of the bus are designed to keep high cars and trucks from entering the tunnel underneath the bus. Using laser rays to scan the surrounding area, if vehicles get too close to the passage, the system will trigger an alarm that will be sent to the bus," he explains.

When a vehicle is underneath the bus, its internal indicators will signal its intended change in direction whilst its radar scanning system further aids movement by warning cars if they get too close to its wheels. And if the car doesn't want to turn in the same direction as the bus? Simple, the bus will emulate its own traffic lights below deck to signal the cars to wait at an appropriate distance until the bus has turned.

"The bus can save up to 860 tonnes of fuel per year, reducing 2640 tonnes of carbon emissions," asserts Youzhou - which for a single bus, is extremely good going. But more important for Beijing's citizens is how well it manages to help reduce congestion on the roads in the coming years.

Stacking up

Currently, Beijing employs four main modes of public transport: the subway, light-rail train, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and standard buses. Of those, it seems as though the BRT has been the most successful to date, with the Beijing government setting down defined regulations for its operation: "The speed of buses should not fall below 25 kilometres per hour; the one-way passenger transportation capacity should reach between 10,000 and 15,000 people per hour; and buses should not be more than one minute late."

With five BRT lines already fully functioning in Beijing, one would wonder what Youzhou's 'straddling bus' could bring to the congestion table that other, more traditional transport modes haven't been able to. Well, for starters, it bypasses the conventional perspective of juxtaposing the problem as public versus private transport. Rather than looking at the two as diametrically opposed and wanting to wean people off private transport and on to public schemes, the straddling bus works sympathetically with existing transport, both public and private, to provide a system that overlays the current infrastructure. A Beijing official admitted, in talking about problems being brought up with the BRT, that: "All the BRT lines are facing an embarrassing situation because their 'special lines' aren't special. At present, 11 kilometres of the BRT line are on open access section of the road where traffic jams usually occur because private vehicles often use the special lanes designed for BRT."

It's here that the most appealing aspect of Youzhou's straddling bus reveals itself. Unlike traditional transport systems - or any vehicle for that matter - the straddling bus isn't restricted by congestion. Neither is it likely to cause delays to waiting passengers. Instead, it effortlessly flies over traffic, picking up and dropping off passengers with complete efficiency. And that is truly what it is, with passengers not only being delivered to their desired station on time and with the most minimal of carbon footprints, but even being given the choice to enter and exit through side doors or a built-in set of stairs that allow access to the overpass through the ceiling door.

For those looking for a objective downside to Youzhou's proposed concept, bar the usual shouts of a copycat monorail or over-ground rail system, there doesn't seem to be one. Too good to be true? Perhaps. But until it's implemented and tested in a real-time context, any teething problems are unlikely to be highlighted.

At present, the design has passed its first stage demonstration, and according to Youzhou the bus is on track to clear all technical validation by the end of the year. Beijing has already sat up and taken note of the innovative solution, with its Mentougou District planning to roll out 186 kilometres of track for 2011 as part of its eco-community pilot project.

Regardless of whether the 'straddling bus' manages to solve Beijing, and indeed China's, congestion woes, one thing is certain - it's a step in the right direction. And for a country nurturing over 120 cities with more than one million inhabitants - with that number set to double by 2030 - you can be sure that if it is hailed as a success, it will be rolled out across China's other bustling cities. And fast.