The system is being tested at an amusement park in Seoul, but if all goes well, the country hopes to expand it to the whole city's bus route—helping minimize unsightly overhead power lines and obviously doing a good turn for the environment. Dubbed the Online Electric Vehicle system, or OLEV, the magnetic electrical charging strips are buried in four different areas along the 2.2km bus route, with the buses sucking power which can be used to drive or just filling up the battery storage.

When visiting cities like San Francisco that rely heavily on trams, which run on ugly overhead lines, I've often thought there should be a better way of networking public transport. This could be the answer—and help a little way towards reducing carbon emissions, too. [PhysOrg]

I think I speak for just about everyone that isn't a bus or truck driver when I say...it's about damn time. I mean, you would be a dammed fool to text while driving any sort of vehicle, but when a big rig goes down there is a much greater potential for disaster (not to mention a bus full of kids). The new ban carries fines of up to $2,750. [Reuters via Crunchgear Image via cuteegroup]

As you'll see in the clip below, the sculpture created a bit of a phenomenon, causing traffic jams and a small media sensation. But I included the video for the fun time lapse construction that you can see about a minute in. I just love watching a small army of people complete a several hour project over a matter of seconds. It feels like I'm getting a ton accomplished, just by sitting here. [CR Blog via The Daily What]

Apparently, a year's worth of human excrement is equal to a measly 2.1 gallons of diesel, but when you collect an entire city's worth of crap, you get a decent amount of fuel. The poop of 250,000 people is enough to operate 80 busses for 62,000 miles each, which is no small thing. So in Norway, they're going to start collecting it and running public transportation on it. Because hey, why not? [Slate via Technabob]

According to Worldchanging, the City of Oslo will convert the sewage to biomethane, then get that methane working as bus fuel. Two sewage plants in Oslo will be adapted to support the infrastructure and the 80 buses will require minor modifications.

The Oslo Sewage Bus trial is expected to begin in September, and if successful, all 400 Oslo buses will be converted.Putting aside initial costs, the biomethane is expected to be about €0.40 cheaper per litre, and each bus will save about 40 tons of carbon dioxide every year. [Worldchanging via Earth First via Slashdot]

Let's say someone put a bomb on your bus and it can't go below 50 mph or it will explode. If that were to happen on a NYC bus you would probably be incinerated because the city has installed a new GPS device in thousands of local commuter and tourist buses. If the authorities get wind of a hijacking in progress, they can slowly stop the vehicle and prevent it from restarting via remote control. It may not work for "Speed" style situations, but for conventional hijackings, it could prove to be an effective weapon.

The GPS device is attached to the bus computer system and it relays information about its speed and direction to a dispatcher. In the event of a hijacking, the dispatcher can remotely slow the bus down and prevent it from being restarted—giving cops enough time to get to the scene. Apparently, slowing the bus down gradually is intended to give terrorists extra time to rethink their position before doing something drastic.

Financing for the system has been made possible thanks to funding from the Department of Homeland Security. So far, the device is on 3000 Grey Line double-decker buses, 80 DeCamp buses and plans are currently underway to equip 3000 New Jersey Transit buses. NYC transit is currently in the pilot stage for the program, but they are expected to follow suit with their 4500 bus fleet sometime in the near future. [New York Post]

Driverless bus straight to your door [WMMNA]