The Superbus project aims to develop high speed coaches

Coach (vehicle)

A coach is a large motor vehicle, a type of bus, used for conveying passengers on excursions and on longer distance express coach scheduled transport between cities - or even between countries...

 capable of speeds of up to 250 kilometres per hour (155.3 mph) together with the supporting infrastructure including special highway lanes constructed separately next to the nation's highways. It is envisaged that the system will offer comfortable, demand-dependent door-to-door transportation rivaling the car and the train. The project includes studies into the infrastructure

Infrastructure

Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...

, logistics

Logistics

Logistics is the management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of destination in order to meet the requirements of customers or corporations. Logistics involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging, and...

, safety

Safety

Safety is the state of being "safe" , the condition of being protected against physical, social, spiritual, financial, political, emotional, occupational, psychological, educational or other types or consequences of failure, damage, error, accidents, harm or any other event which could be...

, reliability

Reliability engineering

Reliability engineering is an engineering field, that deals with the study, evaluation, and life-cycle management of reliability: the ability of a system or component to perform its required functions under stated conditions for a specified period of time. It is often measured as a probability of...

 and economic viability as well as the design of the vehicle itself. Total costs of the project are currently estimated at around seven million euros, funded largely by the Dutch State

Cabinet of the Netherlands

The cabinet of the Netherlands is the main executive body of the Dutch government. The current cabinet of the Netherlands is the Rutte cabinet.-Composition and role:...

. This project is led by Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 astronaut professor Wubbo Ockels

Wubbo Ockels

Prof. Dr. Wubbo Johannes Ockels is a Dutch physicist and a former ESA astronaut. In 1985 he participated in a flight on a space shuttle , making him the first Dutch citizen in space. He was not the first Dutch-born astronaut, as he is preceded by the naturalized American Lodewijk van den Berg, who...

 of the Delft University of Technology

Delft University of Technology

Delft University of Technology , also known as TU Delft, is the largest and oldest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands...

.

The vehicle

The vehicle is 15 meters long electric vehicle with seating for 23 passengers accessible from 16 doors with a cruising speed of 250 kilometres per hour (155.3 mph) and a range of 210 kilometres (130.5 mi).

Super lanes

It is envisaged that the vehicle will run on special 'Super Lanes' which will be geothermically heated

Geothermal heating

Geothermal heating is the direct use of geothermal energy for heating applications. Humans have taken advantage of geothermal heat this way since the Paleolithic era. Approximately seventy countries made direct use of a total of 270 PJ of geothermal heating in 2004...

 in order to prevent icing in the winter season.

Logistics

Rather than following a timetable

Public transport timetable

A public transport timetable is a representation of public transport information to assist a passenger with planning a trip using public transport. A timetable details when vehicle will arrive and depart specified locations and may be organised for by route or for a particular stop...

the vehicle will be routed in response to the needs of the particular passengers offering a complete journey without changes based on central routing optimization system.