BEIJING, June 30 -- A high school student has a bright idea to ease the city's crowded buses - an automatic system to calculate how many passengers each bus carries.
The system, invented by a first-year student at a high school affiliated to Fudan University, is composed of infrared sensors that connect to a control terminal through cell-phone transmission.
By installing a set of sensors on both sides of a bus door, the system records the number of passengers who get on.
The design enables the equipment to tell the difference between passengers getting on and getting off to give an accurate calculation of passengers on board. Data will be transmitted to bus coordination terminals to tell managers how crowded the buses are.
"Companies could coordinate buses and make vehicle dispatches scientifically," said Li Yan, the inventor. "That could help to balance vehicle arrangements and ease the problem of crowded buses."
Li was one of the prize winners at the 2008 Shanghai Youth Innovation Summit, which opened at the weekend. Organized by the Shanghai Education Commission, the annual event attracted about 400 youngsters.
Most student inventors said they got the inspiration for their works after watching the world around them.
Yu Zhijie, a second-year student at Shanghai Middle School, won a prize for her anti-collision fire hydrant.
"Fire hydrants tend to be vulnerable to car accidents, as there are frequent media reports about fire hydrants broken after being hit by vehicles, leading to serious water damage," Yu told Shanghai Daily.
She said Shanghai has a fire hydrant about every 200 meters on average along local streets. She estimated broken fire hydrants waste about 200 tons of water each year.
Yu designed a part to be installed between the fire hydrant and its underground connection. It would be the most vulnerable part of the entire hydrant as it would break first after being hit, without damaging water taps.
"Maintenance workers would only need to change the part to fix a broken fire hydrant," Yu explained.
"This would save people from having to dig underground and speed up maintenance."
(Source: Shanghai Daily)
