“Batie” an elevated bus

    “Batie”, an elevated bus that holds passengers on its upper level and allows other vehicles to pass underneath its cabin, made its first test run on Aug 2 in Qinhuangdao, Hebei province.
    Also known as the Transit Elevated Bus (TEB), “Batie” is 4.8 meters high and 7.8 meters wide, allowing it to travel over vehicles with a height of less than 2 meters.
    The TEB-1 currently runs on electricity and has a 22-meter-long carriage. With 55 seats and 20 vertical *handrails, it can hold up to 300 passengers. It became a social media sensation when its design was released online. “Batie” was *heralded as a solution to traffic congestion for commuters on public transportation.
    While “Batie” generated a lot of buzz online, some experts question its *feasibility. A senior engineer in automotive engineering development at Tsinghua University expressed doubt about the TEB’s efficiency, saying that such a huge vehicle will need to move slowly in case it needs to apply its emergency brakes.
     Yang Tao, head of the Nanjing Institute of City and Transport Planning, listed some other possible limitations, including the fact that current traffic facilities and rules would have to be revised.
     According to China’s design code for road construction, the general height limit for vehicles is 4.5 meters, while the under-bridge height limit on main roads is 4.2 meters. So to make the TEB a reality, city officials would have to make costly renovations. *Pedestrian bridges and overpasses would have to be removed or rebuilt to make way for it. Meanwhile, infrastructure like overhead wires, lamp posts, road signs and traffic cameras all would have to be relocated higher.