And it will have difficulties turning.
I also agree, I view this more of a long bus, than a short train.
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I also agree, I view this more of a long bus, than a short train.
Trucks
These are my sentiments also. It seems like a glorified BRT with the added ability to add/subtract bus segments depending on required passenger volume. Otherwise, I think it's actually a negative because it reduces flexibility during peak times where it can end up blocking traffic from various directions the more articulated bus segments there are. Sort of reminds of that elevated bus idea a few years ago.
@Heliox bro, I may disagree, with existing road already established, what you need is a dedicated lane for it to function. Instead of multiple buses clogging the street, this trackless train will carry 3 to 4 times its number reducing traffic. We already try a Bus carousel in EDSA highway (length of EDSA is 24km) and it works, This vehicle is perfect and ideal for us especially with associated cost and time of delivery instead of waiting for a MRT that takes 5 years to build.
You guys still aren't seeing it. And anyway this is experimental just to test the technology. A lot of work is required to lay down tracks. Once laid, tracks can't exactly be changed. It costs more to lay tracks then it does to paint lines (or whatever method they're using). It takes much longer and you can't change it easily. It also disturbs the road a lot more than a layer of paint. Some roads simply are not suitable for laying tracks.
So there's already the track issue. Next is the flexibility with scaling up and down which buses cannot do. After that there's the autonomous question which buses struggle with a lot more than a "tracked" vehicle.
The energy cost may be similar to a bus but this isn't a train/tram and doesn't have the same set of problems either. It has advantages over buses and it has advantages over trains/trams but may lack the energy efficiency of conventional tracked vehicles.
There are a lot of disputes concerning these cheaper & faster MRT varieties. The biggest arguments all revolve around buses and light rail systems with a lot of experts leaning on BRT and LRT for the reasons you mentioned. I'm just a casual observer, but imo, LRT and BRT suck real bad compared to just buses, subways and overhead monorail. If cost and build time aren't critical factors, there is no dispute that subways & monorail combined with buses are a far better choice. I follow the age old adage "If it isn't broke, don't fix it" mentality. This is my observation when comparing the transit networks of Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, etc. to what are considered modern efficient networks like Paris or London. They're really not comparable, especially when it comes to intercity travel, despite what I believe are biased transit studies from experts saying otherwise.
If this were 10 years ago, I would say there is the potential for autonomy, but now that Beidou-III and 5G are here, real-time decimeter level geolocation is possible. When you combine this with the improving AI coming in the next few years, I think the autonomy issue will be solved, not just for mass transit but also for every day vehicles. There is that middle ground concerning scale you're talking about but I just don't think it's worth the hassle for what I believe are relatively small gains.
It really depends on the city, its typical roads, specific transport preferences and idiosyncrasies. Even topography. I still think it has a place if there is an interest to connect major nodes within a concentrically arranged density city. Buses provide service to more remote destinations since they deal with terrain much better than something like this but the strength here really is the scaling and the ease and pace of which this option can be adopted. No need to seal off major roads for years to create tracks. All vehicles continue operating as before. Rather than being close to impossible, changes to routes can be done within hours. Also already autonomous ready without requiring additional tech. This is just simpler and more fool proof in comparison.
Trains are entirely different class of transport. Not in this discussion. Monorails are horrible because subways are simply superior and the investment required isn't that much more for a typical city with mostly silt and clay underground. This transport vehicle offers far more than buses. Buses are supposed to service more out of reach destinations and while they're not as polluting now, their energy efficiency probably won't be able to match this method. Once occupation rates and patterns are accounted for, these options should be even more superior. That's not saying they'll be adopted everywhere because existing methods are efficient and effective enough to warrant not changing anything.
Basically I'm trying to say that transport engineers around the world have figured that trams are quite a good solution and an addition to complement intercity subways and buses (if the city and traffic behaviour fits the technology). This is just a tram that can be applied without years of laying tracks and can be changed however, whenever. It just lacks the greater energy efficiency of an equivalent tram.
Privately owned cars are going to become phased out. They'll probably be ride sharing autonomous vehicles for that option but it's on its way out while it leaves massive infrastructure - roads. Tram tracks can't be applied easily on all roads.
I think this would be a better solution outside of China where cost and construction are much bigger concerns. In China, I think subways and buses are the way to go for cities of any significant size. I think for cities of <2 million population, the current planning involves building out low to medium speed maglevs with speeds topping out at <200km/h. Supposedly, such maglevs are as energy efficient as regular subways, way cheaper than regular subways and able to traverse steep inclines you find in mountainous cities like Chongqing.
Personally, I can't stand LRT tram networks. I know a lot of expert studies say they are more effective than subways+buses, but I just don't believe it given my experience. The expansion of LRT networks in Europe cost skyhigh while having similar utility to BRT networks while at the same time taking up dedicated lanes that would otherwise be shared with autos if they just used buses. It's a waste of money and a net negative in my opinion.
It's rather complicated to build various quantitative models to determine whether this sort of option is useful for a city. The details matter a lot and without them, one cannot build a decent model which means it's impossible to say how effective this option is. We might feel that subways and buses are sufficient and represent the overall best transport solution but developing a piece of technology isn't necessarily always for immediate profit and application.
For this particular vehicle, it is set apart from trams because it doesn't require the track part. It is NOT a bus. It could be worth developing this so that it might find application when it is thoroughly ready for it. I can actually imagine trackless trams to become the eventual replacement for tracked trams. The city of Sydney Australia recently ripped apart many roads to build tram tracks and it took years to complete. They had trams a century ago and ripped out those tracks to replace with laned roads. Imagine being able to do all those updates and route changes within hours. The only part that isn't yet detailed with this is the energy efficiency.
Edit: Also I don't think maglev makes sense for intercity transport. Unless we're talking greater Tokyo sized landmass and placing just a few maglev stations at every major quadrant. Typical subway trains can already reach pretty decent speeds so introducing maglev which offers good speed is senseless for intercity. The thing slowing them down is the distance between stations and you can't have great separation between stops. Maglev infrastructure costs are considerable for what they offer in intercity transport. Maglev as a replacement core tech for HSR, especially between major cities located at considerable distances, that makes sense.
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