Is it a bus? Is it a train?

[Adlington]

Short answer: both.

The world's first dual-mode vehicle (DMV), equally at home on road and rail, is set to made its public debut on Saturday [25.12.2021] in the town of Kaiyo in Japan's Tokushima prefecture.
The DMV looks like a minibus and runs on normal rubber tyres on the road. But when it arrives at an interchange, steel wheels descend from the vehicle's underbelly onto the rail track, effectively turning it into a train carriage. The train wheels lift the front tyres off the track while the rear wheels stay down to propel the DMV onto the railway.

Source: Euronews

The source is less than 100% accurate. Rail-road vehicles have been in use for years, for railroad right-of-way maintenance. Even for passenger traffic, the Japanese solution isn't the world's first: something similar was tried (without much success) in West Germany in the 1950s.

 

[Gag Halfrunt]

There's a catch: the DMV buses are not fitted with ATS (automatic train protection), so the Japanese government doesn't allow them to mix with other trains. Because of this, the line has been physically disconnected from the JR network. Unless the rules change or the buses are fitted with ATS, the dual mode capability is pointless because the line could just as well be converted into a busway.

See this episode of Japan Railway Journal.

 

[furnessvale]

Short answer: both.

Source: Euronews

The source is less than 100% accurate. Rail-road vehicles have been in use for years, for railroad right-of-way maintenance. Even for passenger traffic, the Japanese solution isn't the world's first: something similar was tried (without much success) in West Germany in the 1950s.

It was also tried by the LMS railway in 1931.

 

[Adlington]

There's a catch: the DMV buses are not fitted with ATS (automatic train protection), so the Japanese government doesn't allow them to mix with other trains.

There are two other catches:
1. The standard JR platforms are much higher than the bus floor.
2. The buses have doors on one side only, so even on a single-track line two platforms are needed at each stop.

 

[Donny_m]

There's a catch: the DMV buses are not fitted with ATS (automatic train protection), so the Japanese government doesn't allow them to mix with other trains. Because of this, the line has been physically disconnected from the JR network. Unless the rules change or the buses are fitted with ATS, the dual mode capability is pointless because the line could just as well be converted into a busway.

See this episode of Japan Railway Journal.

Yeh but if they tracks are already there then it’s free. The process off organising and building a busway would be expensive, and i imagine there’s minimal use for these services.

 

[Class142sbad]

Gives my least favourite train a whole new meaning.

 

[Intercity110]

Gives my least favourite train a whole new meaning.

Also, a tom scott video- he’s one of the best ‘random fact video’ on topic however, if these are fitted with ATS what journeys would they run? Short commuter runs or something like running from the suburbs to a city center, and then going rond before running abk to the suburbs in the evening