The Dual Mode Bus Train

It’s a bus, it’s a train, it’s…. Both?

It seems odd, in this age of all things being beautiful, to be so enchanted by something so ugly… in the prototype stage, anyway.  But you’ve just got to admire the sheer, problem-solving ingenuity that went in to the JR Jokkaido dual-mode vehicle.  This just might be the solution to the mass transit problems of sprawling, car-centric cities like Los Angeles, Houston, etc.

A cross between a road-going, diesel-powered bus and a trolley car/train, the DMV has been drawing intense attention from small rail operators across Japan as a possible solution to lowering the operating cost of local lines.

The vehicle, which is based on a microbus, runs both on roads and railroads by switching between rubber tires and steel wheels.  Its biggest attraction is its ease of use - it automatically switches from rail to road mode at stations, in addition to its low purchasing cost at about Y20 million ($A217,000) each, about one-seventh of a diesel-powered rail car. Its fuel cost is about a quarter of a diesel vehicle, and maintenance cost about one-eighth.

Since JR Hokkaido unveiled a test model in late January 2004, it has received over 400 inquiries and about 4,000 test riders. The Shizuoka Prefecture city of Fuji, which is keen on introducing the vehicle, conducted a first test run outside Hokkaido in late November.

(click here for video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=6I1GBcAlm-8)

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