DALIAN, China -- Plans to create a new form of transportation to ease China's perpetually traffic-clogged roads have gone up in smoke after authorities detained nearly three dozen people involved in the project on charges of defrauding investors.

The design of the Transit Elevated Bus calls for the vehicle body to travel about 2 meters above the ground while its wheels run in channels on either side of the road, letting regular automobile traffic pass underneath. Each elevated car could carry 300 passengers.

The concept was proposed in 2008 by Song Youzhou, who hails from the northeastern province of Heilongjiang and has only an elementary-school education. When Song struggled to find funding, he got a lifeline from financial entrepreneur Bai Zhiming, who bought the rights to develop the bus in November 2015. Bai set up a company, TEB Technology, to handle the project and named Song the chief engineer.

Media hailed the elevated bus as an answer to China's chronic gridlock. Time magazine of the U.S. named it one of the 50 best inventions of 2010. A test drive last summer in Hebei Province brought a flurry of praise from Chinese media as well.

But some expressed skepticism about whether TEB Technology could overcome the technical challenges involved, including the difficulty of getting such a massive vehicle to change direction. Suspicions of fraud surfaced around the same time. Investors began demanding their money back.

Beijing police said Sunday that they have arrested 32 people on charges of illegal fundraising, including Bai, who heads TEB Technology parent Huaying Kailai, an online fundraising platform. The Hebei project has been scrapped as well, leaving the bus little more than a pipe dream for now.