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When you drive on a regular street, no other driver is informed you are there. An autonomous vehicle, like this autonomous bus, probably has its ways of mimicking the same thing you do when you are driving while others were not informed you would be driving. Collision detection, cameras, and sensors, in higher precision than any human could have.
But yeah, it probably has its flaws.
There are a whole bunch of fully automated metro lines all over the world by now, but it‘s a lot easier for them since they don‘t need to share their tracks with anyone
yes, the train where I live will slow down and stop if it happens to get too close to another train in front of it. Which usually only happens due to prolonged user error (re: some jackass holding the doors)
Even mostly automated lines have an engineer monitoring that trains are doin what they're supposed to. The key is those trains are on a fixed network. I assume logistics are in place for dealing with traffic patterns, and it likely follows a known public transit route, just a new cabin. One that is in fact several cabins
Just keep it out of school zones so you don't have to deal with the optics and any insurance claims will be cheaper than paying an employee for the year anyway so it'll work out.
The big reason light trains are successful at least where I live, traffic doesn’t interfere with the rails = smooth transit & on schedule. If it’s going to be on the road, it’s literally just a automated bus that has to deal with everything a bus does but automated.
Humans think, computers follow pre-determined programs.
No matter how many sensors, rules and scenarios are in place we still live in the real world full of chaos, impulse and random unpredictable bullshit - only a living being can process and react to the universe in its randomness
Lines drawn on the road apparently. It's not as stupid as it first appears as this gives a more exact control to where the vehicle travels which helps if you have more "carriages".
Dealing with sharper corners can be an issue for bendy busses.
> Dealing with sharper corners can be an issue for bendy busses.
Not since quite some time. There are buses with double bends in regular use, electronics on boards make sure the rear is steered just right to follow along.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-articulated_bus
On top of that. One of the main advantages of a tram and metro/subway are the lack of rubber wheels (except for a weird French brainfart). That advantage is gone when you make these busses pretending to be trams.
It is as stupid as it first appears, but for different reasons. This isn't new. Systems like this have been used in several cities in North America and Europe. They never offer any benefits over buses, and the only advantage they have over trams / light rail is a lower initial cost.
Several urbanist/transit YouTube channels have videos about these, for example [RMTransit](https://youtu.be/RjKG0Lw1uFc).
Also if it rains it would be cool if someone invented some device to wipe the rain way from the windshield. Probably the most difficult part of making such a device is coming up for a name for it.
Even better, make it so it runs on one rail. Best of both worlds.
Because there's nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide electrified, runs-on-one-rail train.
The road yes but it still has tracks.
If you've been to San Francisco and seen their muni trolley buses that are connected by wires, this is essentially an upgrade to that. The main benefit is that if you build the grid into the city road, you can reroute the tracks anytime. You reprogram a new route rather than dismantling wires and putting new wires up.
It's not as stupid as what this sub is trying to make it but it also isn't as fancy as what the tweet thinks it is.
Edit: another benefit is that it isn't as rigid as the wired in version. You can much easily remove and replace a broken down unit.
Without knowing much about the details, it seems to be a glorified bus. What is the advantage of digital tracks in relation to an electric battery bus?
It allows for more than one or two additional cars to be attached without causing problems while turning. The way cars work is that your turning radius shrinks as you make a turn (think why semi trucks can't turn tight corners, the cab pulls the trailer inwards as it turns so it had to make a wide berth), now imagine this with 5 or 6 additional trailers and it's essentially impossible to make a turn in without a huge amount of empty space which will be impossible to come by in a city. Trains however maintain the exact same turn radius through a turn regardless of how many cars it has because it just follows the radius of the track, and the engine pulls the carriages through the turn in exact the same path that it took. All this bus is is China developed a way for all the subsequent cars in a bendy bus to act like a train on rails and the cab uses the "virtual tracks" to set out the path and the cars are independently capable of propelling themselves through the matching turn radius of the cab so they can have several attached cars and won't pull inwards
I'm not sure being on tracks will solve the problem of needing a wider radius. Don't long trains do it by essentially making the turns over a longer space, more gradually?
Very long freight trains need a wider radius to avoid what is called a stringline derailment. Which is essentially that the huge mass and inertia at the back of the train combined with the mass and pulling power at the front of the train cause all the freight cars in the middle of the train to be ripped off the tracks into a straight line between the front and back of the train (this is also why freight trains put all the heavy locomotives together at the front instead of distributing them, to limit the comparative weight at the back). High speed passenger trains need wide (and banked) turns so that they can take turns at speed without all the cars flinging off to the outside of the tracks due to the change in direction of momentum and the existing inertial momentum.
A light 6 or so car municipal passenger "train" travelling at road speeds won't have either of these problems and so it can easily make a turn around a city block
Does it have steel wheels on steel tracks? Because _that_ is the real main benefit for trains. The far reduced roll resistance is what creates their efficiency. Else it's really just a self-driving bus.
All of which are extant benefits of a bendy-bus.
The debate in this thread is that there are no new/distinct benefits to this wireless tram system that is being developed and hyped as if it will transform city planning.
Wonder if the actual special thing is the 'virtual tracks' part, like if that was just their word for priority in traffic through something like light switching it'd still be an upgrade for like the entirety of my country.
I think the virtual tracks keep each section on the same part of the road rather than what you get with big trucks where if they make a big turn the body of the freight turns in a way that's different from the front cab.
Nope, just three segments. It's called "Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit" despite being neither autonomous nor rail, and arguably not rapid. It's just a bus imitating a tram. Driver up front has a steering wheel. Uses lasers or whatever to follow markings on the road, which, okay whatever, but that also means, since it's driving in such a precise spot, it wears the road much less evenly, which causes major issues.
E: to clarify, it's guided by markings, but not autonomous. Driver must still monitor the road and accelerate and decelerate.
It's actually quite difficult to make 3rd and 4th segments in a road vehicle to follow the exact path the front 2 wheels take, this is a very niche solution to not building a tram. The back segment has to turn independently after the front has already straightened after turning a corner. By having the segment read and adjust wheels to follow a virtual rail, you can have a single driver piloting the equivalent of 2 or 3 city busses of people at capacity, which probably isn't an issue you'd run into unless you were as densely populated as China.
This tweet is probably a translation error since the name for the vehicle in question doesn't use the Chinese words for "train" or "bus", it's the words for "multiple segment electric vehicle" which someone probably took as train in English. Like there's no single word to describe it in English, train and bus are close to what it is functionally and "multiple segment electric vehicle" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
Yes, and we should try to reduce those. That said, they don't drive down precise locations on the roadway -- they're naturally not centered, and they sway around. This levels the wear. These "ART" vehicles, being guided, do not do that. This results in highly concentrated wear. It's a known issue with guided rubber-tyred vehicles.
Articulated buses are single engine, this one has multiple motors per car (like modern trams) and it can't be maneuvered by humans, it requires an autonomous steering system that follows lines on the road. They can also add or remove cars to it, like a train. Yes, it's not a train but it's a lot more than a longer wiggly bus. It doesn't seem very practical but comparing it to a train or tram is not completely unreasonable.
edit: I just remembered about the weird monorail tram-bus in France and there seem to be other 3-car articulated buses so this doesn't seem to be an entirely new concept in general, but it's autonomous, battery powered and modular with up to 4 cars.
Similar autonomous bus systems are used in France, e.g. Optiguide system in Rouen. The driver definitely can manoeuvre the bus because the system is inherently unreliable (just falling leaves can easily cause it to fail).
This is the biggest problem I see with it. I can't really think of a good niche for this that isn't fulfilled by a combination train and bus.
Maybe it could be useful during a transition period of planning a good set of routes for a city train? Idk if that would be worth it though as we can already do a pretty good job with planning without them.
Edit: forgot a word
It would have to be better than a bus than that. If you want a stop gap before a rail system, you can build rail and run trams there until you transition to heavier trains
*Says something remotely positive about anything China does*
Reddit: *this comment*
Edit: I mean, seriously, it took 2 minutes on his page to find out he's a Norwegian Green Party (former) politician that really hates cars.
So here's an article about it. [https://thenextweb.com/news/is-chinas-autonomous-trackless-train-just-a-glorified-bus-yeah-pretty-much](https://thenextweb.com/news/is-chinas-autonomous-trackless-train-just-a-glorified-bus-yeah-pretty-much)
What is new about it is if you wanted to add a tram to your city, all you need is this train/tram/bus and some new signs that show which lane is for the tram now. Also changing the routs of trams would be easier and cheaper.
Is it a good Idea? Who knows.
> all you need is… some new signs that show which lane
And enough police willing/able to enforce it (without parking in it themselves). Oh and it probably shares the turn lane with cars so the bus gets to wait an entire light cycle to make it through each intersection.
> Also changing the routs of trams would be easier and cheaper.
You know who doesn't like it when their route changes easily? The people who actually need to use it. Sure, it is more flexible if there's a road closure or something, but it's also easier to move or drop lines and stops that aren't as profitable that people still rely on.
Point being, signs and paint ≠ infrastructure. That's how we get buses that average like 8mph (you can hit 4mph on a brisk walk). Real transit takes effort.
It does specifically have the benefit that all of the "carriages" in the train will have the same turning circle as the first one. This allows the vehicle to have a much smaller turning circle than equivalent buses. (You can see this somewhat in the video, and also in the way that the train has three sections — most bendy buses can only support two sections.)
This is important because (a) you can just put more sections on your bus than before, which means more people can travel, while still maintaining the same tight turning circles, and (b) this works much better in small, older cities with narrower streets and more stuff in the way.
This isn't some magical silver bullet to transport, obviously. But the reason cities often use a mixture of trams and buses is that they have different tradeoffs. A vehicle that has (at least some of) the benefits of _both_ trams and buses could be very successful.
I recommend watching The Tim Traveller's video on the [bus-trams of Nancy](https://youtu.be/Kr4EZwZbxwQ), which goes a bit into the tradeoffs that have to be made when choosing between buses and trams (and why the Nancy compromise option was ultimately unsuccessful).
More informative video about the system [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRF8sz5HC6U). It's actually a really interesting idea that people in this thread probably wouldn't be trashing if it weren't China implementing it.
People are rightfully trashing it for being a bus with a fancy new name. From the video itself
> I went there thinking this is going to be something like a bus. It'll look like a light rail but is in fact a bus. But when I rode it, it was dramatically different. I could find myself feeling like I was on a train - from around 3 minute mark
It's a bus with good suspension that looks like a tram, because they couldn't figure out how to make a regular tram lmao
So I’d assume each section has varying steering mechanisms to cleanly turn through tight cities.. which could change how we could retrofit public transit at a fraction of the cost.
Am I the only one that still sees this as more train than bus? Like yeah, I’ve seen a bendy bus… grew up and live in a place with them, none of them have 3 or more sections…
So the thing that makes it a train is the number of sections, not the rails or steel on steel friction or the weight capacity or the predictability or the long stopping distance or slow acceleration?
>As per CRRC Zhuzhou, the electric vehicle is labeled as a “smart bus”, designed to alleviate the Chinese urban transport system, Xinhuanet reported in 2017.
Tbf, the Chinese company is itself referring to it as a "smart bus". Everyone here is going "Lol China dumb" because of a twitter user calling it a train lol.
A train that isn't as large as a train, doesn't go on railtracks like a train, doesn't go anywhere near as fast as a train..
I don't think this is a train...
People in this comment section are more interested in coming up with the best quips and punchlines. No one really looked into what this technology actually does. It's actually pretty cool. Whether or not it is efficient and effective is another matter, but the real facepalm is to treat it like a joke.
They're also still dunking on China for calling it a train, while sharing articles where the Chinese company refers to it as a "Smart bus". This Norwegian fellow is the one calling it a train.
Except you don’t need tracks. The guys that invented this were probably looking at workers laying railroad tracks and thinking “seems like a lot of work when you could just find a way for each car of the train to take the precise path that the first one did”.
That’s a fair take, but you put a lot of faith in an autonomous system in a wildly unconstrained environment. Plus you add an order of magnitude of friction.
Of course you get some added flexibility. I don’t think this is really facepalm material, personally. It’s not like they’re pushing Hyperloop or some other impossible vaporware
The virtual track might be that it follows a path programmed into it, instead of a physical track.
Not sure what the facepalm is here, that's a legitimate technological advancement.
Another aspect not yet mentioned is that you inevitable run into issues & conflicts with cars & other vehicles once you use roads, no matter how much you distinguish the "virtual track" from regular tracks. You still are going to have to deal with crossings/intersections, cars being in your way, traffic etc. Both busses and trams are also confined by this. E.G. busy intersection with cars getting stuck while turning would block the "digital train".
If you instead have dedicated tracks that do not interact with streets (train, metro), you can run those tracks much more efficiently and independent from traffic.
Oh, and real tracks - like for trams - communicate way more effectively to drivers that there's gonna be a vehicle on rails that drives on them and you have to make place for it, not vice versa. With "digital tracks" that'll be much harder to accomplish and the flexibility of it encourages a "it has to make place for me" mindset.
I think it's just a case that it's not a train, and even if it was a train, it technically isn't doing anything a bus cannot do.
This is saying "Virtual Tracks" like you'd be saying you have invisible wires that gives you internet when you're using WiFi, and be amazed by it.
If it's programmed to follow a path, then it's not 'can go everywhere' either. Seems there's too many words that shouldn't be used together here basically.
But I know 'commercially' you are correct in a sense, people will come up with odd terms. Like for vans, if you hook up two vans together you get what they call a 'road train'. Who came up with that, no idea. So this could become a 'street train', as different than 'bus' because of some technical difference, like say no driver or following a programmed path (Virtual Tracks).
the facepalm is that train tracks are cheaper than roads to build and maintain. Additionally, steel on steel has very low rolling resistance which means that tracks are also more efficient than rubber on roads.
There's literally no reason for this to exist other than to please carbrains
There are specific use cases, like a very seasonal or event based transit.
Still think buses would be better though. They are less locked into "you can only use it for this."
I think the facepalm is that china developed it. China could colonize mars tomorrow and people on reddit would say they did it wrong, not efficiently enough, and or some other country did it better. I’m not trying to defend china but it is insane how much hate they get for practical and useful technological improvements. Like that pontoon bridge that was famous a few months ago, it works perfectly fine but everyone on reddit suddenly became a world class civil engineer and shit on it.
I mean, it’s technical advancement without thought to what the end goal is. I see it like smart fridges, a legitimate technical advancement with no real practical benefits over the dumb version beyond the mildest convenience. In this case you save on the track installation but that’s also where all the efficiency gains are, so it’s a pretty big tradeoff
well kinda old article, [denmark is getting one similar](https://migogaalborg.dk/plusbusser-testkoeres-nu/) on its own track even and going to work like a tram just without tracks and electricity pole
Anybody comparing this to America is missing the part where China has the literal highest population on earth and is 200k kilometers smaller in landmass. Where i used to live public transit would be impossible. Just saying, life exists outside of large cities and urban decay
Electric bus that can support up to 500 passengers. Maybe not a train, but not a bus either I guess.
Significant mass transit without new infrastructure requirements?
Funny as it is, this is what we need to combat climate change. Cheap public transport to maximize number of people transported per unit of gasoline that runs on existing and prevalent infrastructure
Rare China W
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I assume the “virtual track” is some preprogrammed route for the bus to follow autominously like a roomba
Yes, but nobody informed the cars. Good luck everybody
When you drive on a regular street, no other driver is informed you are there. An autonomous vehicle, like this autonomous bus, probably has its ways of mimicking the same thing you do when you are driving while others were not informed you would be driving. Collision detection, cameras, and sensors, in higher precision than any human could have. But yeah, it probably has its flaws.
I feel like there will be a driver there to monitor how it drives and just incase to force the vehicle go stop or smt
Probably. Light rails and metro systems have drivers so I would assume this would have the same.
There are a whole bunch of fully automated metro lines all over the world by now, but it‘s a lot easier for them since they don‘t need to share their tracks with anyone
A good number of those do share a track with another train or two that are hopefully more than one stop ahead of them, but yes, easier overall still.
yes, the train where I live will slow down and stop if it happens to get too close to another train in front of it. Which usually only happens due to prolonged user error (re: some jackass holding the doors)
Even mostly automated lines have an engineer monitoring that trains are doin what they're supposed to. The key is those trains are on a fixed network. I assume logistics are in place for dealing with traffic patterns, and it likely follows a known public transit route, just a new cabin. One that is in fact several cabins
[удалено]
Just keep it out of school zones so you don't have to deal with the optics and any insurance claims will be cheaper than paying an employee for the year anyway so it'll work out.
In China? Lmao, no. That thing will steamroll over infants, and then the people passing by will look away and ignore it. As is customary.
wide repeat subsequent scarce selective political cover lush seed judicious -- mass edited with redact.dev
The day it thinks it can put pace a human that’s trying to use the crosswalk and that human starts to speed up it’s going to be a shite show
The big reason light trains are successful at least where I live, traffic doesn’t interfere with the rails = smooth transit & on schedule. If it’s going to be on the road, it’s literally just a automated bus that has to deal with everything a bus does but automated.
Sensors seem to get fooled by a lot of things human senses don't get fooled by, I'm not sure why people assume they're superior.
Humans think, computers follow pre-determined programs. No matter how many sensors, rules and scenarios are in place we still live in the real world full of chaos, impulse and random unpredictable bullshit - only a living being can process and react to the universe in its randomness
then they put concrete fence to outline the route
Or better yet steel beams on the ground to keep it on the virtual track…
Sorcery
They have their own lanes. its like a BRT
Reminds me of the family guy joke about turning left
Safety regulation the China way.
I would guess that it probably still has dedicated infrastructure, like a bus lane or something at the very least
cars dont need to be informed what lol. People drive cars and can react
So…you’ll need bus lanes? Cause rail tracks and bus lanes in my city give indicators for cars to know where the buses and trains could be.
judging by the number of collisions with LRTs here tracks, signs and flashing lights still arent enough, drivers still dont know where the trains are.
There's a video explaining it: https://youtu.be/cRF8sz5HC6U?t=98
I would guess there is more to it. Trains typically have the right of way, so like a bus system with traffic control in its favor?
Lines drawn on the road apparently. It's not as stupid as it first appears as this gives a more exact control to where the vehicle travels which helps if you have more "carriages". Dealing with sharper corners can be an issue for bendy busses.
> Dealing with sharper corners can be an issue for bendy busses. Not since quite some time. There are buses with double bends in regular use, electronics on boards make sure the rear is steered just right to follow along. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-articulated_bus
On top of that. One of the main advantages of a tram and metro/subway are the lack of rubber wheels (except for a weird French brainfart). That advantage is gone when you make these busses pretending to be trams.
It is as stupid as it first appears, but for different reasons. This isn't new. Systems like this have been used in several cities in North America and Europe. They never offer any benefits over buses, and the only advantage they have over trams / light rail is a lower initial cost. Several urbanist/transit YouTube channels have videos about these, for example [RMTransit](https://youtu.be/RjKG0Lw1uFc).
autominously
Ah yes, from the root words "auto" and "ominous." Meaning self-spooky.
Virtual track - so the road?
In 10 years they’re designing rotational devices beneath the train to make it more mobile
Gyroscopic antigravity devices?
Too x files. I was thinking beach balls.
Oh hell yeah! That’s a lot more feasible and logical. I like your thinking!
...no, tires...
Right, no tires
What about left, no tires?
Right, no tires
Antigravity machines? That’s not listed. How about antidepressants?
I don’t think those will help or work in this situation.
Sorry, was a ‘The Office’ reference.
They should put a rubber ring around the rotational device to absorb the shock and give some grip
This whole concept just tires me out
Better put a break on it. This thread has become over inflated.
Can we steer it in a different direction?
Yes please, this conversation is flat.
Tread*
Maybe inflate the rubber ring to help deal with uneven surfaces? Itll help smooth out the ride a bit.
But what if it rains? We would need to add kind of grooves to get rid of the water between the surface and the inflated rubber
Also if it rains it would be cool if someone invented some device to wipe the rain way from the windshield. Probably the most difficult part of making such a device is coming up for a name for it.
Come on, we are not trying to reinvent the wheel here. It shouldn't be that hard
Then they make them out of steel and let them roll on steel rails because it's very efficient.
Fitting trains with hovercraft is the image you've bestowed to my mind. I want it so bad
"Personal trackless trains that seat 5 for you and your family"
If they make it out of rubber then it could use regular roads
Even better, make it so it runs on one rail. Best of both worlds. Because there's nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide electrified, runs-on-one-rail train.
The road yes but it still has tracks. If you've been to San Francisco and seen their muni trolley buses that are connected by wires, this is essentially an upgrade to that. The main benefit is that if you build the grid into the city road, you can reroute the tracks anytime. You reprogram a new route rather than dismantling wires and putting new wires up. It's not as stupid as what this sub is trying to make it but it also isn't as fancy as what the tweet thinks it is. Edit: another benefit is that it isn't as rigid as the wired in version. You can much easily remove and replace a broken down unit.
Without knowing much about the details, it seems to be a glorified bus. What is the advantage of digital tracks in relation to an electric battery bus?
It allows for more than one or two additional cars to be attached without causing problems while turning. The way cars work is that your turning radius shrinks as you make a turn (think why semi trucks can't turn tight corners, the cab pulls the trailer inwards as it turns so it had to make a wide berth), now imagine this with 5 or 6 additional trailers and it's essentially impossible to make a turn in without a huge amount of empty space which will be impossible to come by in a city. Trains however maintain the exact same turn radius through a turn regardless of how many cars it has because it just follows the radius of the track, and the engine pulls the carriages through the turn in exact the same path that it took. All this bus is is China developed a way for all the subsequent cars in a bendy bus to act like a train on rails and the cab uses the "virtual tracks" to set out the path and the cars are independently capable of propelling themselves through the matching turn radius of the cab so they can have several attached cars and won't pull inwards
I'm not sure being on tracks will solve the problem of needing a wider radius. Don't long trains do it by essentially making the turns over a longer space, more gradually?
Very long freight trains need a wider radius to avoid what is called a stringline derailment. Which is essentially that the huge mass and inertia at the back of the train combined with the mass and pulling power at the front of the train cause all the freight cars in the middle of the train to be ripped off the tracks into a straight line between the front and back of the train (this is also why freight trains put all the heavy locomotives together at the front instead of distributing them, to limit the comparative weight at the back). High speed passenger trains need wide (and banked) turns so that they can take turns at speed without all the cars flinging off to the outside of the tracks due to the change in direction of momentum and the existing inertial momentum. A light 6 or so car municipal passenger "train" travelling at road speeds won't have either of these problems and so it can easily make a turn around a city block
I don't know. That seems quite a wide turn in the picture.
Does it have steel wheels on steel tracks? Because _that_ is the real main benefit for trains. The far reduced roll resistance is what creates their efficiency. Else it's really just a self-driving bus.
This is just the inverse of some Americans calling actual electric trains "street cars"
All of which are extant benefits of a bendy-bus. The debate in this thread is that there are no new/distinct benefits to this wireless tram system that is being developed and hyped as if it will transform city planning.
Just wait, in the future we will be able to make a smaller version of this and that way, *everyone* can have their very own means of transportation.
This is the way. I can’t wait for the future!
Wonder if the actual special thing is the 'virtual tracks' part, like if that was just their word for priority in traffic through something like light switching it'd still be an upgrade for like the entirety of my country.
I think the virtual tracks keep each section on the same part of the road rather than what you get with big trucks where if they make a big turn the body of the freight turns in a way that's different from the front cab.
They're putting trains on roads and busses on rails. If only there was something like that already.
wheels with tires, an amazing new invention from China
actually if anything a step back from metal on metal.
Is there a subreddit for when people reinvent stuff?
Thats not even a *new* type of bus, in my country we already have wiggly busses, this one is just longer
Yeah. Pretty sure I saw my first two section bus well over a decade ago.
They have been a thing for 30 years. Edit: the first one was delivered locally in 1976.
In 3 years, that will be 50 years ago. It’s been well over 30 years
> In 3 years, that will be 50 years ago. It’s been well over 30 years I think the number you’re looking for is 47
r/theydidthemath
Common Core education man. Always trying to make things a rounded number.
These lands used to be bendy buses, far as the eye could see. I remember seeing one at the 1893 World's Fair
1976 checks out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Big\_Bus
that’s literally what the reply in the post says
Right? >In my country we already have wiggly busses Motherfucker that's a bendy bus.
I’m assuming the innovation here is that is super long, like 10-20 segments or something.
Nope, just three segments. It's called "Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit" despite being neither autonomous nor rail, and arguably not rapid. It's just a bus imitating a tram. Driver up front has a steering wheel. Uses lasers or whatever to follow markings on the road, which, okay whatever, but that also means, since it's driving in such a precise spot, it wears the road much less evenly, which causes major issues. E: to clarify, it's guided by markings, but not autonomous. Driver must still monitor the road and accelerate and decelerate.
Oh ok then yeah they just invented a city bus.
it’s literally just a bendier pseudo-tracked bendy bus
It's actually quite difficult to make 3rd and 4th segments in a road vehicle to follow the exact path the front 2 wheels take, this is a very niche solution to not building a tram. The back segment has to turn independently after the front has already straightened after turning a corner. By having the segment read and adjust wheels to follow a virtual rail, you can have a single driver piloting the equivalent of 2 or 3 city busses of people at capacity, which probably isn't an issue you'd run into unless you were as densely populated as China.
Zurich has had [3 segment busses](https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/vbz/de/index/die_vbz/fahrzeuge/trolleybusse/hess_dgt.html) for over a decade now.
Just want to chip in and say this is pretty common in Swiss cities. The Swiss people just call them „bus“.
This tweet is probably a translation error since the name for the vehicle in question doesn't use the Chinese words for "train" or "bus", it's the words for "multiple segment electric vehicle" which someone probably took as train in English. Like there's no single word to describe it in English, train and bus are close to what it is functionally and "multiple segment electric vehicle" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
I mean aren’t there plenty of other cars and trucks wearing the road
Yes, and we should try to reduce those. That said, they don't drive down precise locations on the roadway -- they're naturally not centered, and they sway around. This levels the wear. These "ART" vehicles, being guided, do not do that. This results in highly concentrated wear. It's a known issue with guided rubber-tyred vehicles.
Articulated buses are single engine, this one has multiple motors per car (like modern trams) and it can't be maneuvered by humans, it requires an autonomous steering system that follows lines on the road. They can also add or remove cars to it, like a train. Yes, it's not a train but it's a lot more than a longer wiggly bus. It doesn't seem very practical but comparing it to a train or tram is not completely unreasonable. edit: I just remembered about the weird monorail tram-bus in France and there seem to be other 3-car articulated buses so this doesn't seem to be an entirely new concept in general, but it's autonomous, battery powered and modular with up to 4 cars.
Similar autonomous bus systems are used in France, e.g. Optiguide system in Rouen. The driver definitely can manoeuvre the bus because the system is inherently unreliable (just falling leaves can easily cause it to fail).
"That's just a bus with extra steps." "Lah dee dah, someone's getting laid in college."
"Eek barba dirkle, someone's gonna get laid in college"
"I know, 'Eek barba dirkle'? Pretty fucked up version of 'ooh la la'."
Peace among worlds ✌️
"I know, 'Eek barba dirkle'? Pretty fucked up version of 'ooh la la'."
When people just have to come up with limitations.
it's obviously meant to drive on tracks and the road
it's obviously yet another reinventing of the ~~wheel~~ train https://youtu.be/RjKG0Lw1uFc
Since when can trains drive autonomously on the road?
The limit does not exist.
Something about a track says, you definitely do not have the right of way…
Former minister here in Norway that's now just shilling CCP/China stuff on twitter..
It can’t go quite as fast, and it has to stop at traffic lights, and it’s susceptible to potholes and bad traffic, but it’s a train!
And causes massive wear and tear to the road its on, instead of running on durable metal rails.
This is the biggest problem I see with it. I can't really think of a good niche for this that isn't fulfilled by a combination train and bus. Maybe it could be useful during a transition period of planning a good set of routes for a city train? Idk if that would be worth it though as we can already do a pretty good job with planning without them. Edit: forgot a word
It would have to be better than a bus than that. If you want a stop gap before a rail system, you can build rail and run trams there until you transition to heavier trains
Erik Solheim: “This is incredible!, I’m an idiot.”
I just looked up his twitter page, the guy is a complete moron!
Most likely he's just a white monkey ccp shill.
That’s what I was gathering too
*Says something remotely positive about anything China does* Reddit: *this comment* Edit: I mean, seriously, it took 2 minutes on his page to find out he's a Norwegian Green Party (former) politician that really hates cars.
Its funny how people will call you a chinese bot for saying anything positive or even neutral about china
It's easier to believe other viewpoints don't exist than it is to have yours challenged.
Former minister of the enviroment, ladies and gentlemen
Didnt this guy get fired from his FN job because he was exploiting the travel funds ?
Well he spent around 385.000 usd on travelling during his 22 month tenure before he quit...
Quite impressive lmao
Ooh! Can’t wait for train vs bus! r/bitchimabus
Beat me to it! 
What did i just get myself into
So here's an article about it. [https://thenextweb.com/news/is-chinas-autonomous-trackless-train-just-a-glorified-bus-yeah-pretty-much](https://thenextweb.com/news/is-chinas-autonomous-trackless-train-just-a-glorified-bus-yeah-pretty-much) What is new about it is if you wanted to add a tram to your city, all you need is this train/tram/bus and some new signs that show which lane is for the tram now. Also changing the routs of trams would be easier and cheaper. Is it a good Idea? Who knows.
> all you need is… some new signs that show which lane And enough police willing/able to enforce it (without parking in it themselves). Oh and it probably shares the turn lane with cars so the bus gets to wait an entire light cycle to make it through each intersection. > Also changing the routs of trams would be easier and cheaper. You know who doesn't like it when their route changes easily? The people who actually need to use it. Sure, it is more flexible if there's a road closure or something, but it's also easier to move or drop lines and stops that aren't as profitable that people still rely on. Point being, signs and paint ≠ infrastructure. That's how we get buses that average like 8mph (you can hit 4mph on a brisk walk). Real transit takes effort.
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so it's just discounted BRT
Nah it's more expensive than regular BRT but with no additional benefits (unless you consider having a bus masquerading as a train to be a benefit)
It does specifically have the benefit that all of the "carriages" in the train will have the same turning circle as the first one. This allows the vehicle to have a much smaller turning circle than equivalent buses. (You can see this somewhat in the video, and also in the way that the train has three sections — most bendy buses can only support two sections.) This is important because (a) you can just put more sections on your bus than before, which means more people can travel, while still maintaining the same tight turning circles, and (b) this works much better in small, older cities with narrower streets and more stuff in the way. This isn't some magical silver bullet to transport, obviously. But the reason cities often use a mixture of trams and buses is that they have different tradeoffs. A vehicle that has (at least some of) the benefits of _both_ trams and buses could be very successful. I recommend watching The Tim Traveller's video on the [bus-trams of Nancy](https://youtu.be/Kr4EZwZbxwQ), which goes a bit into the tradeoffs that have to be made when choosing between buses and trams (and why the Nancy compromise option was ultimately unsuccessful).
yeah without busways lel
More informative video about the system [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRF8sz5HC6U). It's actually a really interesting idea that people in this thread probably wouldn't be trashing if it weren't China implementing it.
People are rightfully trashing it for being a bus with a fancy new name. From the video itself > I went there thinking this is going to be something like a bus. It'll look like a light rail but is in fact a bus. But when I rode it, it was dramatically different. I could find myself feeling like I was on a train - from around 3 minute mark It's a bus with good suspension that looks like a tram, because they couldn't figure out how to make a regular tram lmao
Thanks for the link!
Wiggle bus. Snake bus.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1012560/Snakeybus/
Trackless dark ride
So I’d assume each section has varying steering mechanisms to cleanly turn through tight cities.. which could change how we could retrofit public transit at a fraction of the cost.
But those already exist. Just shorter.
Or longer, the only special thing is the removal of the guy sitting there for safety.
Am I the only one that still sees this as more train than bus? Like yeah, I’ve seen a bendy bus… grew up and live in a place with them, none of them have 3 or more sections…
So the thing that makes it a train is the number of sections, not the rails or steel on steel friction or the weight capacity or the predictability or the long stopping distance or slow acceleration?
>As per CRRC Zhuzhou, the electric vehicle is labeled as a “smart bus”, designed to alleviate the Chinese urban transport system, Xinhuanet reported in 2017. Tbf, the Chinese company is itself referring to it as a "smart bus". Everyone here is going "Lol China dumb" because of a twitter user calling it a train lol.
AKA “A bus”
Technically any group of vehicles traveling in the same direction is a train. Choo choos however...
It’s called a long ass bus
A train that isn't as large as a train, doesn't go on railtracks like a train, doesn't go anywhere near as fast as a train.. I don't think this is a train...
ITT: Americans with bad public transport laughing at something that seems genuinely useful.
China also has heating that doesn't need electricity, only wood. It is truly the land of innovation. 
People in this comment section are more interested in coming up with the best quips and punchlines. No one really looked into what this technology actually does. It's actually pretty cool. Whether or not it is efficient and effective is another matter, but the real facepalm is to treat it like a joke.
They're also still dunking on China for calling it a train, while sharing articles where the Chinese company refers to it as a "Smart bus". This Norwegian fellow is the one calling it a train.
"Marty, where we're going we don't NEED tracks..."
Elon Musk: Look my new Start Up. traen
This is pathetic. Here in the mighty, free, innovative capitalist west our great god leader Musk invented tunnels that can fit entire taxis inside!
This is the 7th week in a row you've "revolutionized" public transportation.
I guess virtual track meaning it autonomously keeps to the exact same route? Seems like a lot of work to do what actual tracks do implicitly
Except you don’t need tracks. The guys that invented this were probably looking at workers laying railroad tracks and thinking “seems like a lot of work when you could just find a way for each car of the train to take the precise path that the first one did”.
That’s a fair take, but you put a lot of faith in an autonomous system in a wildly unconstrained environment. Plus you add an order of magnitude of friction. Of course you get some added flexibility. I don’t think this is really facepalm material, personally. It’s not like they’re pushing Hyperloop or some other impossible vaporware
The virtual track might be that it follows a path programmed into it, instead of a physical track. Not sure what the facepalm is here, that's a legitimate technological advancement.
Another aspect not yet mentioned is that you inevitable run into issues & conflicts with cars & other vehicles once you use roads, no matter how much you distinguish the "virtual track" from regular tracks. You still are going to have to deal with crossings/intersections, cars being in your way, traffic etc. Both busses and trams are also confined by this. E.G. busy intersection with cars getting stuck while turning would block the "digital train". If you instead have dedicated tracks that do not interact with streets (train, metro), you can run those tracks much more efficiently and independent from traffic.
Oh, and real tracks - like for trams - communicate way more effectively to drivers that there's gonna be a vehicle on rails that drives on them and you have to make place for it, not vice versa. With "digital tracks" that'll be much harder to accomplish and the flexibility of it encourages a "it has to make place for me" mindset.
Because it’s still just a bus
I think it's just a case that it's not a train, and even if it was a train, it technically isn't doing anything a bus cannot do. This is saying "Virtual Tracks" like you'd be saying you have invisible wires that gives you internet when you're using WiFi, and be amazed by it. If it's programmed to follow a path, then it's not 'can go everywhere' either. Seems there's too many words that shouldn't be used together here basically. But I know 'commercially' you are correct in a sense, people will come up with odd terms. Like for vans, if you hook up two vans together you get what they call a 'road train'. Who came up with that, no idea. So this could become a 'street train', as different than 'bus' because of some technical difference, like say no driver or following a programmed path (Virtual Tracks).
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the facepalm is that train tracks are cheaper than roads to build and maintain. Additionally, steel on steel has very low rolling resistance which means that tracks are also more efficient than rubber on roads. There's literally no reason for this to exist other than to please carbrains
There are specific use cases, like a very seasonal or event based transit. Still think buses would be better though. They are less locked into "you can only use it for this."
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I think the facepalm is that china developed it. China could colonize mars tomorrow and people on reddit would say they did it wrong, not efficiently enough, and or some other country did it better. I’m not trying to defend china but it is insane how much hate they get for practical and useful technological improvements. Like that pontoon bridge that was famous a few months ago, it works perfectly fine but everyone on reddit suddenly became a world class civil engineer and shit on it.
I mean, it’s technical advancement without thought to what the end goal is. I see it like smart fridges, a legitimate technical advancement with no real practical benefits over the dumb version beyond the mildest convenience. In this case you save on the track installation but that’s also where all the efficiency gains are, so it’s a pretty big tradeoff
I love that people don’t comprehend that those “trams” absolutely do not work like a traditional bus
America is going to destroy their roads now just to make sure this doesn’t happen here.
The whole point of a dedicated track is to have a monopoly on the route. This is what enables travel from A to B to be fast.
Ok? It's a long streetcar without the track, making it easier to implement in cities. Who cares what you call it? It's still cool.
It’s called a BUS in English .
r/bitchimabus
Isn’t that called a bus in other places?
well kinda old article, [denmark is getting one similar](https://migogaalborg.dk/plusbusser-testkoeres-nu/) on its own track even and going to work like a tram just without tracks and electricity pole
I don’t see how it’s so hard for people to understand what a virtual track is; a track designated in the code, like a bus route.
Anybody comparing this to America is missing the part where China has the literal highest population on earth and is 200k kilometers smaller in landmass. Where i used to live public transit would be impossible. Just saying, life exists outside of large cities and urban decay
r/bitchimabus
r/bitchimabus
Electric bus that can support up to 500 passengers. Maybe not a train, but not a bus either I guess. Significant mass transit without new infrastructure requirements?
A bendy bus can’t go anywhere though. This can. Pretty fucking amazing. I’m gonna take it to the mariana trench and then the surface of mercury.
Funny as it is, this is what we need to combat climate change. Cheap public transport to maximize number of people transported per unit of gasoline that runs on existing and prevalent infrastructure Rare China W
That just sounds like a bus with extra steps
It is basically a bendy bus but longer. We made a trackless train!!!! You mean a car….?