The US is notoriously addicted to cars. Census data only shows 2% of commuters use rapid transit such as subways, and U.S. rail projects can cost billions of dollars and take decades to complete.
“Cities all over the world have proposed light rail systems that are either scaled back or not at all because of the cost of putting rail in the road bed. It’s very disruptive to business,” said Lisa Chamberlain, director of communications for the Global Center for Urban Transformation at the World Economic Forum . “For the residents, it’s very expensive.”
A Chinese company has a radically new solution. It is a train-bus hybrid that runs on rubber wheels but follows a predetermined track. It’s called Autonomous Rapid Transit (ART), and it’s made by CRCC, a Chinese public transportation manufacturer.
“So I went there and thought, this is going to be something that hides like a bus,” says Peter Newman, a professor of sustainability at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. “It will look like a light rail, but it’s actually a bus. But when I rode it, it was dramatically different. I could feel like I was on a train.”
The ART vehicle costs approx 2.2 million dollars and is estimated to cost around 1/5 of the price of a traditional tram system per mile. It uses stabilizing technology like active suspension systems that help make it more stable than a city bus.
Watch the video to see how ART works and how it can benefit American cities.