Artistic rendering of the "straddle bus"

A work group led by Professor Zhang Jianwu from the School of Mechanical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University conducted the research that proved it could work, said Song Youzhou, the vehicle's inventor and chairman of the Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment Company (SHFPE).

The "straddle bus" spans two of traffic lanes and sits at a height of 4.5 meters. It will be used on major roads in cities and may reduce road traffic by 20 to 30 percent, according to Song.

The bus will run along special tracks and will sit on a pair of stilts so ordinary cars can pass underneath it. It could carry up to 1,400 passengers and it could travel as fast as 60 to 80 kilometers per hour.

The cost of manufacturing the bus and building the road facilities is 50 million yuan (7.34 million U.S.dollars) per kilometer, about one tenth the cost of building a subway line of the same length.

The time it would take to build its tracks is three times less than that of a subway.

The product is estimated to have a market value of over 1 trillion yuan and may serve as a substitute for subway and bus systems, according to the inventor.