Looks like...
Batman's Limousine.
A Dutch former astronaut is hoping the future of public transport could be a 250 km/h (155 mph) "Superbus" - a 23-seater electric beast stretching an impressive 15 metres (49 ft). Wubbo Ockels, who flew as a mission specialist on Challenger's STS-61A mission back in 1985, has worked with a design team from the TU Delft …
Put it on rails. As it is designed, it should be able to run on current rails at the high speed due to it's low weight and low drag. Just switch the wheels and put a bunch of them in a line. It would sacrifice the ability to stand up and walk around, but it is much cheaper alternative than having to build a dedicated engine and rail system.
Because the whole basis of an effective public transport system is that you collect a large number of people at one place, not that you go around picking people up all over town.
The latter already exists, where a minibus picks people up from their front doors, and it is an economic failure - it costs too much, is tool slow, and picks up too much subsidy.
It only requires a "special dedicated road" because of its width and speed. You can't drive 250km/h on the same road where normal traffic operates within city limits (50km/h).
But otherwise it seems fit enough for normal roads. So the only requirements is a wider road, no rails, no dedicated electric system just simple concrete. This is much cheaper than classic trains, trams and trolleys.
I think this is indeed a good idea. And it looks great too.
Not to mention it seems much safer than current busses. I mean in cars seat-belts are obligatory but in busses and trams they're nowhere to be seen. Hypocrite governments.
Of course, the TRUE idiocy of this scheme is that instead of building a special superbus highway, you could probably build the high speed rail line they canceled a few years back along the same route ... for a higher capacity, less travel time, better through connections (Amsterdam - Leeuwarden - Groningen - Bremen - Hamburg and on) and ultimately, less environmental cost (since not even a high speed train has to carry weighty battery packs composed of all kinds of icky materials only the Chinese would mine due to environmental regs elsewhere)
Also, home pickup - obviously, the builders haven't ever driven anything larger than a compact around a residential area either - cramped streets, tight bends, lotsa wrongly parked cars ...
Hand grenade, guess why ...
If a bus gets through these tight bends, then so does this bus.
I think anytime there's suggestion of dragging Groningen into civilisation, there's another waste-money-quick scheme. It's a small city surrounded by nothing, miles and miles of empty nonproductive nothing: only those stuck there remain, what's the point of improving transport links.
"According to chief designer Antonia Terzi, former chief aerodynamicist of the BMW-Williams Formula 1 team..."
Mmmm, that'll be the person responsible for the walrus-toothed Williams FW26: http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns12323.html. Something of a low-point in Williams F1 cars:
"The team redesigned the front end of the car in time for the Hungarian Grand Prix and fitted the car with a more conventional nosecone. This helped bring an upsurge of competitiveness to the car and gave Montoya a needed boost."
Let's hope this bus is a little better.
Some people seem to have no connection with the real world at all:
1. At 15 meters, it is longer than a double-decker bus (11 m). One carries 23 passengers, another about 80. Hmm, tough one.
2. At 155mph, by laws of physics, it will not be an efficient mode of transportation - due to high friction at high speeds.
3. How the devils will this be of any use as a public form of transport, when it is so long? What will it do on normal streets, in normal cities, with normal bends, corners and junctions?
4. The idea of being picked up from home is another good one. Do you fancy traveling in a "bus" that goes all over town, and stops every 5 minutes to wait 10 minutes in the street at every stop for Joe Blogs to wake up, kiss his misus and lock the house?
Oh yeah, they can keep whatever they are smoking.
P.S. - if they wouldn't have mentioned "public transport" and "bus" - just call it a fast limo - they would have stood a chance. Then again, all limo's I've seen go slow in order for the gits inside to stick their various body parts through the windows and sunroof(s) and make a racket. You hardly need a 155mph electric machine for that sort of entertainment.
In addition to agreeing to every point above, Gull wing doors are completely incompatible with public transport. Also, regarding point two, it requires special roads too.
They would have been far better off, at least in the European transport link, to hire a conventional coach company or setup a train link.
This is just a rich Arab's toy.
Madness that any investor would spend money on technology like this while already demonstrated superlatively beneficial technologies, which make even fusion look like a pointless dream, already exist in the form of Thorium Molten Salt Reactors. The Chinese are racing ahead with this technology while the West pays for all of it by consuming tons of rare earth elements for electric batteries, consumer and military electronics and pretty much anything in a modern lifestyle, almost all from China of course.
What an upside down world.
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From the site.... "Driver assisted controlled on existing roads, autopilot on Supertrack"
So it CAN run on a special road if you want the autopilot working but I'm guessing they aren't at the point of trusting this on normal roads yet so there they specify a driver.
I like the basic idea but this will only work for a select few and isn't UK friendly. Premium transport for the elite who don't want to drive or employ a driver themselves. "Pickup at the mansion in the hills... drop off at the golf club please"
Listen to you all, heaven forbid someone actually tries something different. Yet at the very sight of a prototype all the ill-informed commentards are out in force nay-saying and predicting doom and destruction.
If people had listened to folk like you we'd have no technology at all.
"who needs one of those cars when my horse does me just fine and I can fill it up in the local meadow"
People here are, clearly, not against new technology. Most if not all of us love the *good* new technology. Don;t think that all new technology is good.
To use your analogy, it's more like "I think the horse has had it's day, I think we should tie 500 kittens together and use them instead".
Not really an improvement, like this current proposal. It's not being new that's the problem, it's the profoundly obvious stupidity of the new idea.
There have been several projects that cost a lot of money, apparently failed, yet can still be considered successes in hindsight.
Look at the APT (British Rail's Advanced Passenger Train). That was criticised at the time, but we learned from it, and there are various trains all using elements of it's technology very successfully.
Even if this bus is a failure, as long as they learn from any mistakes, it could be a good thing.
... but quite another to have your mind so open that your brain falls out.
This project is right up there with the Chinese "Super Bus" (or, as I like to call it, given that it runs on rails: "Tramzilla"):
http://www.wheels24.co.za/News/General_News/Superbus-on-track-to-cut-traffic-20100813
This "Superbus" is a solution in search of a problem, not the other way around.
Good technology finds a problem and solves it by inventing an efficient solution.
Bad technology finds a solution and then tries to invent a problem to justify its need.
Feh. I'll stick to my original point: they would better have poured the development funding into seed capital to build the Northern High Speed Line rather than pay for this turkey.
Small cars made to latch onto something like this, with low range electric motors.
The biggest problem is intelligent routing and getting passengers onboard, if the pods could latch on people could have their own environment and security like a car and get dropped off a few miles from their destination. They could charge at the same time as travelling and at the mini stations, which could just be a bit of tarmac with auto docking power points and internet access.
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Whether it'll *cough* fly is another thing entirely, of course. But it sure does look pretty, and it's a fairly interesting take. The thing itself might work really well for VIP transports, reducing the number of individual cars needed. Not so sure on the public transport angle. It sounds a bit like car pooling with strangers in a bigger car. Even the (nice!) big comfy chair^Wseats won't protect you from excessively smelly fellow travelers. And toilet stops might have to be scheduled, but since the scheme hinges on a lot of automated planning support anyway that might be put in too. You can't actually move much while underway so no toilet like in coach buses. Do recall though that early trains had doors for each compartment so gullwing doors for each seat aren't that strange. Given that the "mitfahrt" thing works reasonably well in Germany, this might fit in there for starters, then spread out. They do have a lot of nice autobahn already.
Not too worried on the separate road thing, because with sufficient road smarts you can dual-purpose them for "electronic road trains", where cars might team up to drive nice and quick with clearance too tight for human reaction times, so computers will have to do. That's something we've been toying for ages and should combine well with this sort of idea.
Hate to make a stupid comment, but it doesn't seem particularly wheelchair friendly, hell will freeze over before they make a public transport system that doesn't account for the disabled.
Paris because I'm sure even she could come up with a better idea than this (which is saying something sadly).