Beijing: China’s ambitious ‘Elevated Bus’ project has come to a grinding halt.
When it was spotted testing sometime early this month, the TEB or the Transit Elevated Bus, made headlines worldwide — with its ability to simply “glide” over traffic. it was really simple tech — take a bus, place it on rails, elevate it and then allow cars to pass from under it.
Observers though, immediately pointed out a few technical defects. The TEB was unable to pass beneath bridges and taller vehicles found its awkward elevation, too low.
But what is easily the most troubling development for the mass transit system, is the allegation that the whole project is a scam. The TEB was funded as a peer-to-peer investment project — a matchmaking of borrowers and investors, who are promised splendid returns for their cash.
The TEB’s promoters reportedly promised investors a return of 12 per cent on their money. But so far, the project has not moved beyond a test run. The P2P business model though, is still running.
On Wednesday, China’s banking regulator unveiled aggressive measures to restrain the country’s fast expanding P2P lending sector, warning that almost half of the 4,000-odd online lending platforms were “problematic”.
Some P2P firms are running Ponzi schemes and raising funds illegally, said the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), which jointly released a new set of regulations with three other government bodies.
