* USA - The Wheels on the Bus Move How?
Magnetic buses get test demo
San Francisco,CA,USA -The NBC Bay Area, by John Boitnott -Dec 5, 2008: -- Caltrans and Berkeley city officials unveiled a new bus Friday that is not steered by a human, but by a magnetic guidance system developed by engineers at UC Berkeley... AC Transit said the testing work was "performed with remarkable precision"... The 60-foot research bus was demonstrated along a one-mile stretch of East 14th Street in San Leandro... It was embedded with a series of magnets. Special sensors and processors on board the bus detected magnets in the pavement and controlled the steering based upon the information they received... The driver maintained control of braking and acceleration, but the steering was completely automated, allowing the bus to pull into stops to within an accuracy of 1 centimeter, AC Transit officials said... At any time, the driver can resume manual control of the bus... Researchers say such precision docking would help shave seconds off of the time to load and unload passengers at each stop... Researchers said the savings add up to a significant increase in reliability and efficiency over the course of an entire bus route... (Photo - AP: This story brings to mind an old nursery rhyme)Labels: magnetic guided buses
posted by Unknown @ 6:20 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home