The Antiplanner

Self-Steering Buses

30th January 2009

Self-Steering Buses

posted in Follow up, Transportation |

While doing research on driverless highways, I ran across this video of a self-steering bus in Adelaide.

The bus line is called the “O-bahn” with O standing for omnibus (which was abbreviated to bus about a century ago) and bahn being German for road. Interestingly, it relies on a mechanical device to keep the bus on the track. As shown below, a small wheel projects from each side of the bus. When the wheel hits the concrete curb on the side of the roadway, it turns the bus wheel slightly. The driver controls the speed and steers the bus when it leaves the bahn.

Adelaide built a 7.5-mile route for $98 million, including the buses. That’s more than $10 million per mile for the roadway, which is a lot less than light rail. But it is pretty expensive considering that it used by only a few buses. The above video shows the bus passing two other buses in the oncoming lane about 42 seconds apart. This suggests that the buses run on 90-second headways, which is more frequent than most light-rail lines.

Yet it leaves the bahn unused most of the time. A freeway lane can move 2,000 vehicles per hour, while one bus every 90 seconds is 40 per hour. This means there is room for up to 1,960 more vehicles per hour on the bahn. Call it 1,800 to be on the safe side.

Adelaide could have offered to let people attach little guidewheels to their cars and let them drive on the bahn for an electronic toll large enough to keep the bahn uncongested. But Adelaide has an anti-auto mentality, so the city actually went to the trouble to design the bahn so that it would rip the oil pan off of any car that attempts to drive on it. Then, the only way to get the car off the bahn is with a crane. Now that’s auto hostile.

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There are currently 11 responses to “Self-Steering Buses”

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  1. 1 On January 30th, 2009, Francis King said:

    Antiplanner wrote:

    “While doing research on driverless highways, I ran across this video of a self-steering bus in Adelaide.”

    The new one in Cambridge, UK, will be the the longest route of the kind in the world. It opens in the summer of this year. The intention is to replace some branch lines with guided buses. I’m still in two minds about doing this. Do the cost savings really make up for the increased number of changes in the course of a journey?

    “Yet it leaves the bahn unused most of the time. A freeway lane can move 2,000 vehicles per hour, while one bus every 90 seconds is 40 per hour. This means there is room for up to 1,960 more vehicles per hour on the bahn. Call it 1,800 to be on the safe side.”

    A freeway lane has a saturation flow of about 2300 pcus per hour. A pcu is equal to one car. But buses equal (roughly) two cars (they’re bigger, and more sluggish), hence the bus flow would be 80 pcus per hour. The sustainable capacity of a freeway lane is closer to 1600 pcus per hour.

    “Adelaide could have offered to let people attach little guidewheels to their cars and let them drive on the bahn for an electronic toll large enough to keep the bahn uncongested. But Adelaide has an anti-auto mentality, so the city actually went to the trouble to design the bahn so that it would rip the oil pan off of any car that attempts to drive on it. Then, the only way to get the car off the bahn is with a crane. Now that’s auto hostile.”

    Driving a bus with guidewheels is not as easy as is being shown in the video. The bus drivers need to be trained to drive one of these buses.

    Also, the cars on the route would have to go somewhere when they left it. The congestion would be moved around, but not fixed.

    You really wouldn’t want to allow the general public onto this route.

    posted on January 30th, 2009 at 2:19 am

  2. 2 On January 30th, 2009, prk166 said:

    What is the actual capacity of this sort of thing?

    posted on January 30th, 2009 at 1:24 pm

  3. 3 On January 30th, 2009, Owen McShane said:

    A bit old hat.
    Down on the farm, at least down on farms down here in NZ, our farmers no longer have to steer their tractors and can focus on what they are actually doing with the machine they are towing or pushing. “New Holland’s” Intellisteer combines GPS, satellite and base station correction signals to accuracy to an inch or to four inches in row crops or open fields.
    There are a whole range of equipment controllers that go with the package.
    But going back to Randall’s original query about the chicken and egg the problem may be solved by these kinds of development in other sectors. In other words the farming sector may generate the sales which bring tne price down in one component, aviation might bring the price down for another component, bus and truck operators may do the same for another component and next thing the whole system becomes cost effective and proven and the next stop of the driverless car is a small hill rather than a massive mountain.

    posted on January 30th, 2009 at 6:25 pm

  4. 4 On January 31st, 2009, Scott said:

    More waste of money.

    That route had some nice nature.
    It looked like very little development for potential rider to live or work.
    Where would people’s starting & ending destinations be?

    posted on January 31st, 2009 at 3:35 am

  5. 5 On February 1st, 2009, the highwayman said:

    Guided buses, O’Toole you’ve got to be f*cking joking again!

    posted on February 1st, 2009 at 7:29 am

  6. 6 On February 1st, 2009, Owen McShane said:

    Why?
    A light rail train is just a guided bus – just guided by rails rather than by electro/mechanical means.

    posted on February 1st, 2009 at 12:14 pm

  7. 7 On February 1st, 2009, the highwayman said:

    Then why try to reinvent the rail in other words.

    posted on February 1st, 2009 at 12:54 pm

  8. 8 On February 1st, 2009, the highwayman said:

    http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/05/half-bus-half-t.html

    There are better ways of doing things like this.

    posted on February 1st, 2009 at 5:58 pm

  9. 9 On February 1st, 2009, Owen McShane said:

    HIghwayman
    Because if we had not invented rail two centuries ago we would not be inventing rail now.

    posted on February 1st, 2009 at 7:52 pm

  10. 10 On February 2nd, 2009, Francis King said:

    Highwayman wrote:

    “Guided buses, O’Toole you’ve got to be f*cking joking again!”

    Why not? Guided buses have solid concrete trackway. Once it’s down, it’s down. Rail tracks, by contrast, require constant maintenance. Guided buses use regular cheap, mass-produced, buses, with little guide wheels attached. Railways use expensive specialised vehicles.

    “There are better ways of doing things like this.”

    Yes, but not like that. Using two forms of propulsion is an old idea:

    http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/ttt/track-wheel-vehicles-saurer.html

    Unfortunately it didn’t work in practice, since it was too fiddly and unreliable. The wheels were taken off, and it was run only on tracks.

    posted on February 2nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm

  11. 11 On February 2nd, 2009, the highwayman said:

    Francis King Says:

    February 2nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
    Highwayman wrote:

    “Guided buses, O’Toole you’ve got to be f*cking joking again!”

    Why not? Guided buses have solid concrete trackway. Once it’s down, it’s down. Rail tracks, by contrast, require constant maintenance.

    THWM: Even sidewalks have to be replaced.

    FK: Guided buses use regular cheap, mass-produced, buses, with little guide wheels attached. Railways use expensive specialised vehicles.

    THWM: A bus is around $500,000. Though now bus making company like Solaris moving into making trams too. http://www.solarisbus.pl/en/

    Though if you crave tires so much then why not just go for a Paris style metro car?

    http://farm1.static.flickr.com/97/270931637_3e8c313b73.jpg?v=0

    posted on February 2nd, 2009 at 7:49 pm

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