Abstract: An elevated public transit bus system that increases the passenger capacity and decreases the passenger trip time of a fixed route bus service traveling in traffic on a city street to provide a high capacity rapid transit system. The high capacity buses are suspended above the motor vehicle traffic lanes by a support structure constructed in the lane adjacent to the public sidewalk. The propulsion system of the electrically powered buses run in a box beam from which the transit passenger cabins are suspended. The beams guide the buses along the existing fixed route service that is being upgraded to the carrying capacity of an elevated rail rapid transit system. The bus stops or lift stations of the elevated buses for passenger pick up and drop off is also constructed in the road lane next to the sidewalk. The lift stations house an enclosed movable platform that lifts passengers from sidewalk level to the floor level of the suspended bus.

Abstract: A card system and method for accessing a public transit system that employs a card pre-encoded with trip data permitting a set number of trips on the transit system and a card processing unit to receive and process a card each time access to the transit system is desired. The card processing unit includes a time write head to record the time of current use on the card and a time read head to retrieve the time of last use from the card. A microprocessor computes the difference between the time of current use and the time of last use. A trip read head scans the encoded trip data to determine the number of trips remaining on the card and a trip write head is provided to write to the card to decrement the number of trips by a given amount after use. The trip write head and the time write head are employed only if the difference between the time of current use and the time of last use is greater than a preset period.