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Bus rapid transit ( BRT), also referred to as a busway or transitway, is a trolleybus, electric bus, or bus service system designed to have higher Route capacity, reliability, and other quality features than a conventional Transit bus system. Typically, a BRT system includes Bus lane, and gives Bus priority at intersections where buses may interact with other traffic; alongside design features to reduce delays caused by passengers boarding or leaving buses, or paying . BRT aims to combine the capacity and speed of a Light rail (LRT) or Rapid transit (MRT) system with the flexibility, lower cost and simplicity of a bus system.
Although some cities, such as Lima, and Runcorn Busway, pioneered segregated busway systems with some BRT features, the first city to fully integrate every BRT feature into a single system was Curitiba with the Rede Integrada de Transporte in 1974. , a total of 166 cities in six continents have implemented BRT systems, accounting for of BRT lanes and about 32.2 million passengers every day. The majority of these are in Latin America, where about 19.6 million passengers ride daily, and which has the most cities with BRT systems, with 54, led by Brazil with 21 cities. The Latin American countries with the most daily ridership are Brazil (10.7 million), Colombia (3.0 million), and Mexico (2.5 million). In the other regions, China (4.3 million) and Iran (2.1 million) stand out. Currently, Transjakarta is the largest BRT network in the world, with about of corridors connecting the Jakarta.
The expression "BRT" is mainly used in the Americas and China; in India, it is called "BRTS" (BRT System); in Europe it is often called a "busway" or a "BHLS" (stands for Bus with a High Level of Service). The term transitway was originated in 1981 with the opening of the OC Transpo transitway in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Critics have charged that the term "bus rapid transit" has sometimes been misapplied to systems that lack most or all the essential features which differentiate it from conventional bus services. The term "bus rapid transit creep" has been used to describe severely degraded levels of bus service which fall far short of the BRT Standard promoted by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) and other organizations.
Moreover, buses are more flexible than rail vehicles, because a bus route can be altered, either temporarily or permanently, to meet changing demand or contend with adverse road conditions with comparatively little investment of resources.
The OC Transpo BRT system in Ottawa, Canada, was introduced in 1983. The first element of its BRT system was dedicated bus lanes through the city centre, with platformed stops. The introduction of exclusive separate busways (termed 'Transitway') occurred in 1983. By 1996, all of the originally envisioned 31 km Transitway system was in operation; further expansions were opened in 2009, 2011, and 2014. As of 2019, the central part of the Transitway has been converted to light rail transit, due to the downtown section being operated beyond its designed capacity. In 1995, Quito, Ecuador, opened MetrobusQ its first BRT trolleybuses in Quito, using articulated trolleybuses.
The TransMilenio in Bogotá, Colombia, opening in 2000, was the first BRT system to combine the best elements of Curitiba's BRT with other BRT advances, and achieved the highest capacity and highest speed BRT system in the world.
In January 2004 the first BRT in Southeast Asia, Transjakarta, opened in Jakarta, Indonesia. , at , it is the longest BRT system in the world. Africa's first BRT system was opened in Lagos, Nigeria, in March 2008 but is considered a light BRT system by many people. Johannesburg, South Africa, BRT Rea Vaya, was the first true BRT in Africa, in August 2009, carrying 16,000 daily passengers. Rea Vaya and MIO (BRT in Cali, Colombia, opened 2009) were the first two systems to combine full BRT with some services that also operated in mixed traffic, then joined the BRT trunk infrastructure.
In 2017 Marrakesh, Morocco, opened its first BRT Marrakesh trolleybus system (BHNS De Marrakesh) trolleybuses Corridors of 8 km (5.0 mi), of which 3 km (1.9 mi) of overhead wiring for operation as trolleybus.
High-level platforms for high-floored buses makes it difficult to have stops outside dedicated platforms, or to have conventional buses stop at high-level platforms, so these BRT stops are distinct from street-level bus stops. Similar to rail vehicles, there is a risk of a platform gap, and is even greater due to the nature of bus operations. or other methods may be used to ease quick and safe alignment of the BRT vehicle with a platform.
A popular compromise is with a low step at the door, which can allow easy boarding at low-platform stops compatible with other buses. This intermediate design may be used with some low- or medium-capacity BRT systems.
The MIO system in Santiago de Cali, Colombia, pioneered in 2009 the use of dual buses, with doors on the left side of the bus that are located at the height of high-level platforms, and doors on the right side that are located at curb height. These buses can use the main line with its exclusive lanes and high level platforms, located on the center of the street and thus, boarding and leaving passengers on the left side. These buses can exit the main line and use normal lanes that share with other vehicles and stop at regular stations located on sidewalks on the right side of the street.
An example of high-quality stations include those used on TransMilenio in Bogotá since December 2000, the MIO in Cali since November 2008, Metrolinea in Bucaramanga since December 2009, Megabús in Pereira since May 2009. This design is also used in Johannesburg's Rea Vaya.
The term "station" is more flexibly applied in North America and ranges from enclosed waiting areas (Ottawa and Cleveland) to large open-sided shelters (Los Angeles and San Bernardino).
Large cities usually have big bus networks. A map showing all bus lines might be incomprehensible, and cause people to wait for low-frequency buses that may not even be running at the time they are needed. By identifying the main bus lines having high-frequency service, with a special brand and separate maps, it is easier to understand the entire network.
Public transit apps are more convenient than a static map, featuring services like trip planning, live arrival and departure times, up-to-date line schedules, local station maps, service alerts, and advisories that may affect one's current trip. Transit and Moovit are examples of apps that are available in many cities around the world. Some operators of bus rapid transit systems have developed their own apps, like Transmilenio. These apps even include all the schedules and live arrival times and stations for buses that feed the BRT, like the SITP (Sistema Integrado de Transporte Público or Public Transit Integrated System) in Bogotá.
Since buses are usually powered by internal combustion engines, bus metros raise ventilation issues similar to those of motor vehicle tunnels. Powerful fans typically exchange air through ventilation shafts to the surface; these are usually as remote as possible from occupied areas, to minimize the effects of noise and concentrated pollution.
A straightforward way to reduce air quality problems is to use internal combustion engines with lower emissions. The 2008 Euro V European emission standards set a limit on carbon monoxide from heavy-duty of 1.5 g/kWh, one third of the 1992 Euro I standard. As a result, less forced ventilation will be required in tunnels to achieve the same air quality.
Another alternative is to use electric propulsion, which Seattle's Metro Bus Tunnel and Boston's Silver Line Phase II implemented. In Seattle, Dual-mode bus (electric/diesel electric) buses manufactured by Breda were used until 2004, with the center axle driven by obtaining power from Overhead lines through in the subway, and with the rear axle driven by a conventional diesel powertrain on freeways and streets. Boston is using a similar approach, after initially using trolleybuses pending delivery of the dual-mode vehicles that was completed in 2005.
In 2004, Seattle replaced its "Transit Tunnel" fleet with diesel-electric hybrid buses, which operate similarly to outside the tunnel and in a low-noise, low-emissions "hush mode" (in which the diesel engine operates but does not exceed idle speed) when underground. The need to provide electric power in underground environments brings the capital and maintenance costs of such routes closer to those of light rail, and raises the question of building or eventually converting to light rail. In Seattle, the downtown transit tunnel was retrofitted for conversion to a shared hybrid-bus and light-rail facility in preparation for Seattle's Central Link Light Rail line, which opened in July 2009. In March 2019, expansion of the light rail in the tunnel moved buses back to surface streets.
Bi-articulated battery electric buses cause no problems in tunnels anymore but provide BRT capacity.
Other metrics used to evaluate BRT performance include:
Based on this data, the minimum headway and maximum current vehicle capacities, the theoretical maximum throughput measured in passengers per hour per direction (PPHPD) for a single traffic lane is some 150,000 passengers per hour (250 passengers per vehicle, one vehicle every 6 seconds). In real world conditions BRT Rio (de Janeiro, BRS Presidente Vargas) with 65.000 PPHPD holds the record, TransMilenio Bogotá and Metrobus Istanbul perform 49,000 – 45,000 PPHPD, most other busy systems operating in the 15,000 to 25,000 range.
| 21 | |||||
| 49,000 | 113 | ||||
| Ahmedabad | Janmarg (Ahmedabad BRT) | 450,000 | 125 | ||
| Guangzhou | Guangzhou Bus Rapid Transit | 26,900 | 1,000,000 | 22 | |
| Cairo | Cairo Bus Rapid Transit | 76 | |||
| 81 | |||||
| 140Sum of km of all lines on [6], as of 6 March 2018. | |||||
| 24 | |||||
| Istanbul | Metrobus (Istanbul) | 45,000 | 1,000,000 | 52 | |
| 23 | |||||
| 251.2 | |||||
| New York | Select Bus Service | 30,195 | |||
| Tehran | Tehran Bus Rapid Transit | 1,800,000 | 150 | ||
| Lahore Metrobus | Lahore Transport Company | 220,000 | 29 |
The study concludes, that BRT-"capacity on TransMilenio exceeds all but the highest capacity heavy rail systems, and it far exceeds the highest light rail system."
Performance data of 84 systems show
More topical are these BRT data
When TransMilenio opened in 2000, it changed the paradigm by giving buses a passing lane at each station stop and introducing express services within the BRT infrastructure. These innovations increased the maximum achieved capacity of a BRT system to 35,000 passengers per hour. The single-lane roads of Istanbul Metrobus had been frequently blocked by Phileas buses breaking down, causing delays for all the buses in a single direction."Happy with Metrobus, when there is no better alternative". Hurriyet Daily News. 22 July 2009. Retrieved 5 November 2011. After focusing on Mercedes-Benz buses, capacity increased to 45,000 pph. Light rail, by comparison, has reported passenger capacities between 3,500 pph (mainly street running) to 19,000 pph (fully grade-separated).G. Gardner, J. C. Rutter and F. Kuhn (1994). The performance and potential of light rail transit in developing cities. Project Report No. PR69. Transport Research Laboratory, Crowthorne, UK.
There are conditions that favor light rail over BRT, but they are fairly narrow. These conditions are a corridor with only one available lane in each direction, more than 16,000 passengers per direction per hour but less than 20,000, and a long block length, because the train cannot block intersections. These conditions are rare, but in that specific instance, light rail might have a minimal operational advantage.
The United States Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO) summarized in the report "Mass Transit – Bus Rapid Transit Shows Promise", the U.S. Federal Transit Administration (FTA) provided funding for the construction of heavy rail and of light rail at that time, but not of BRT. The FTA funding of BRT "rather focuses on obtaining and sharing information on projects being pursued by local transit agencies". In spite of this different funding the capital costs of BRT systems were lower in many US communities than those of light rail systems and performance often similar. The GAO stated, BRT systems were generally more flexible compared to light rail and faster. "While transit officials noted a public bias toward Light Rail, research has found that riders have no preference for rail over bus when service characteristics are equal."
An additional use of BRT is the replacement of heavy rail services, due to infrastructure damage, reduced ridership, or a combination of both where lower maintenance costs are desired while taking advantage of an existing dedicated right of way. One such system in Japan consists of portions of the JR East Kesennuma Line and Ōfunato Lines, which were catastrophically damaged during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, and later repaired as a bus lane over the same right of way, providing improved service with much lower restoration and maintenance costs. Another system set to open in August 2023 is a portion of the JR Kyushu Hitahikosan Line, which was damaged due to torrential rain in 2017. In both cases, ridership had dropped considerably since the lines opened, and the higher capacity of a rail line is no longer needed or cost-effective compared to buses on the same alignments.
In 2013, the New York City authorities noted that buses on 34th Street, which carried 33,000 bus riders a day on local and express routes, traveled at , only slightly faster than walking pace. Even despite the implementation of Select Bus Service (New York City's version of a bus rapid transit system), dedicated bus lanes, and traffic cameras on the 34th Street corridor, buses on the corridor were still found to travel at an average of 4.5 mph.
In the 1960s, Reuben Smeed predicted that the average speed of traffic in central London would be without other disincentives such as road pricing, based on the theory that this was the minimum speed that people will tolerate. When the London congestion charge was introduced in 2003, the average traffic speed was indeed which was the highest speed since the 1970s. By way of contrast, typical speeds of BRT systems range from .
In 2003, a study edited by the German GTZ compared various MRT systems all over the world and concluded ″Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) can provide high-quality, metro-like transit service at a fraction of the cost of other options″.
In 2013, the analysis of a database of nineteen LRT projects, twenty-six HRT projects, and forty-two BRT projects specified "In higher income countries ... an HRT alternative is likely to cost up to 40 times as much as a BRT alternative". and a surface LRT alternative about 4 times that of a BRT alternative.
Operational cost of running a BRT system is generally lower than light rail, though the exact comparison varies, and labor costs depend heavily on wages, which vary between countries. For the same level of ridership and demand, higher labor costs in the developed world relative to developing countries will tend to encourage developed world transit operators to prefer operate services with larger but less frequent vehicles. This will allow the service to achieve the same capacity while minimizing the number of drivers. This may come as a hidden cost to passengers in lower demand routes who experience significantly lower frequencies and longer waiting times and limit gain of ridership.
In the study done by the U.S. GAO, BRT systems usually had lower cost as well based on "operating cost per vehicle hour", as on "operating cost per revenue mile", and on "operating cost per passenger trip", mainly because of lower vehicle cost and lower infrastructure cost.
An ambitious light rail system runs partly grade separated (e.g. underground), which gives free right-of-way and much faster traffic compared to passing the traffic signals needed in a surface level system. Underground BRT was suggested as early as 1954. As long as most buses still run on diesel, air quality can become a significant concern in tunnels, but the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel is an example of using hybrid buses, which switch to overhead electric propulsion while they are underground, eliminating diesel emissions and reducing fuel usage. Alternatives are elevated busways or - more expensive - elevated railways.
Supported by contributions of bus-producing companies such as Volvo, the ITDP not only established a proposed "standard" for BRT system implementation, but developed intensive lobby activities around the world to convince local governments to select BRT systems over rail-based transportation models (subways, light trains, etc.).
The most extreme versions of BRT creep lead to systems that cannot even truly be recognized as "Bus Rapid Transit". For example, a rating from the ITDP determined that the Boston Silver Line was best classified as "Not BRT" after local decision makers gradually decided to do away with most BRT-specific features. The study also evaluates New York City's Select Bus Service (which is supposed to be BRT-standard) as "Not BRT".
To reduce direct emissions some systems use alternative forms of traction such as electric or hybrid vehicles. BRT systems can use trolleybuses to lower air pollution and noise emissions such as those in Beijing Bus and Quito. The price penalty of installing overhead lines could be offset by the environmental benefits and potential for savings from centrally generated electricity, especially in cities where electricity is less expensive than other fuel sources. Trolleybus electrical systems can be potentially reused for future light rail conversion. Transjakarta buses use cleaner compressed natural gas-fueled engines, while Bogotá started to use hybrid buses in 2012; these hybrid systems use regenerative braking to charge batteries when the bus stops and then use electric motors to propel the bus up to 40 km/h, then automatically switching to the diesel engine for higher speeds, which allows for considerable savings in fuel consumption and pollutant dispersion.
In Bogotá the overcrowding was even worse; the average of TransMilenio was eight passengers per square meter (). Only 29% felt satisfied with the system. The data also showed that 23% of the citizens agreed with building more TransMilenio lines, in contrast of the 42% who considered that a rapid transit system should be built. Several cases of sexual assault had been reported by female users in TransMilenio. According to a 2012 survey made by the secretary of the woman of Bogota, 64% of women said they had been victims of sexual assault in the system. The system had even been ranked as the most dangerous transportation for women. The poor quality of the system had occasioned an increment in the number of cars and motorcycles in the city; citizens preferred these transportation means over TransMilenio. According to official data, the number of cars increased from approximately 666,000 in 2005 to 1,586,700 in 2016. The number of motorcycles was also growing, with 660,000 sold in Bogota in 2013, two times the number of cars sold.
At the end of 2018 Transmilenio ordered 1383 new buses as a replacement of the older ones in service. 52% were compressed natural gas (CNG) buses made by Scania with Euro 6 emission rating, 48% were diesel engine made by Volvo with Euro 5 emission rating. More (or renewed?) orders have produced an impressive result: "To improve public and environmental health, the City of Bogotá has assembled a fleet of 1,485 electric buses for its public transportation system - placing the city among the three largest e-bus fleets outside of China."
Retrieved 2022-09-28
In the year 2022 Bogotá has won the Sustainable Transport Award
Retrieved 2022-09-30
The system in Jakarta had been experiencing issues, with complaints of overcrowding in buses and stations and low frequency of the routes. There were extensive safety concerns as well; rampant sexual harassment has been reported, and the fire safety of the buses has been under scrutiny after one of the buses, a Zhongtong imported from China, suddenly and spontaneously caught on fire. The quality of the service was so bad that the then-governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, in March 2015 publicly apologized for the poor performance of the system.
A lack of permanence of BRT has been criticized, with some arguing that BRT systems can be used as an excuse to build roads that others later try to convert for use by non-BRT vehicles. Examples of this can be found in Delhi, where a BRT system was scrapped, and in Aspen, Colorado, where drivers are lobbying the government to allow mixed-use traffic in former BRT lanes as of 2017, although in other US cities, such as Albuquerque, New Mexico, just the opposite is true. Such exuse might be a side effect of the advantages connected with the flexibility of BRT.
Experts have considered a failure of BRT to land use structure. Some cities that are sprawled and have no mixed use have insufficient ridership to make BRT economically viable. In Africa, the African Urban Institute criticized the viability of ongoing BRTs across the continent.
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