Press. voanews.com
A Chinese
company has unveiled a driverless bus-train hybrid that uses white lines
painted on the road to navigate. The company, CRRC, called the electric vehicle
a “smart bus.” The Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit is made up of three cars, is
30 meters long and is capable of carrying about 500 passengers. It can
reportedly reach speeds up to 70 kilometers per hour and can travel 25
kilometers on one 10-minute charge.
It uses
sensors to stay on the white line.
The smart
bus is much cheaper than building a rail track. This makes it ideal for cities
that have growing demand for public transit, but not enough money to build
subways. According to state media, Xinhua, it costs $102 million to build a
kilometer of subway and only $2 million for the ART. The first line will be a
6.5 kilometer route expected to start running in 2018 in Zhuzhou.
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