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Main BRT featuresThese bus systems can come in a variety of forms, from dedicated busways that have their own rights-of-way (e.g., Ottawa's Transitway or the Pittsburgh MLK East Busway) to bus services that utilize HOV lanes and dedicated freeway lanes (e.g., Honolulu's CityExpress) to limited stop buses on pre-existing routes. An ideal Bus Rapid Transit service would be expected to include most of the following features :
Image:Curitiba bus stop.JPG Bus stop in Curitiba
Image:Doppelgelenkbus 01 KMJ.jpg Double articulated bus in Hamburg, Germany Acceptance of BRT may increase using trolley-buses, because of the lower gaseous and noise emissions. The penalty of having additional costs for catenaries is outweighed by the increasing fuel prices. ControversiesOpponents of Bus Rapid Transit initiatives argue that BRT is not an effective replacement for light rail or subway services. They argue that in order for BRT to have greatest effect, it must have its own right-of-way requiring space and often construction costs. In many cases, BRT does not, and shares the road with cars and other local buses. Buses run on an ordinary road surface, hence it is more difficult for BRT to claim exclusive street use. As a result, BRT operating in mixed traffic is subject to the same congestion, delays, and jarring and swaying rides as do ordinary city buses. Furthermore, signal priority systems, which are often the sole factor differentiating BRT from regular limited-stop bus service (most notably in Los Angeles' extensive "Rapid" system), might cause severe disruptions to traffic flow on major cross streets. Opponents argued that this merely redistributes, rather than reduces, the traffic congestion problems that BRT systems are designed to alleviate. On the other hand, many light rail systems also utilize signal priority system and railroad-style crossing gates to speed up service as well, and in the same time both BRT and light rail get more persons across a road junction than car traffic. It should be noted that much of the controversy arises from the wide range of definitions of BRT. Many agencies make a clear distinction between a pure BRT, which is in exclusive lanes, and a more compromised form in mixed traffic. For example, the Los Angeles Orange Line runs entirely in an exclusive lane and therefore achieves speed and reliability comparable to rail. Because it is functionally equivalent to rail, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority presents this line as part of its rail transit system, distinct from its "Rapid" lines, which run in mixed traffic. A study [1] of the 98 B-Line BRT in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada conducted by TransLink, Transport Canada and the IBI Group confirmed many benefits of that BRT system including increased ridership, reduced vehicle emissions, improved reliability, improved customer satisfaction. Analysis of the transit supportive signal timing and the transit signal priority system that supports the service confirmed a slight improvement in travel times and reliability for all vehicles in the corridor with negligible impact to traffic crossing the corridor. Having exceeded the capacity that can be handled efficiently on buses, the 98 B-Line will be replaced by a rail transit project, the Canada Line, in 2009. In larger towns and cities, such as Essen, Germany and Pittsburgh, USA, it is common for a right of way exclusive to public transport to be used by both light rail and buses. Comparison with other forms of mass transitBRT attempts to combine the advantages of a metro system (exclusive right-of-way to improve punctuality and frequency) with the advantages of a bus system (low construction and maintenance costs, does not require exclusive right-of-way for entire length, at least at the beginning). Compared to standard bus service BRT systems with dedicated right-of-way and thus an increased average transport speed can provide more passenger-miles with the same number of rolling stock and personnel. They also offer the prospect of a more fluent ride than a normal bus immersed in stop-and-go traffic. On a single route basis, the capacity of BRT and normal buses is smaller compared to tram (light rail, tram-train) and rapid transit (metro, mass transit). Typical buses are 12 metres (40 feet) long, articulated buses 18 metres (60 feet). The maximum length for a street-running tram consist (in Germany) is 75 metres (about 250 feet). Light rail systems running in-street are limited to one city block in length, unless, as in Sacramento, CA, they are allowed to obstruct intersections when stopped. Metro trains can be 240 m (about 800 feet) long. With similar dwell times in stations the capacity of rail systems scales with the length of the train. For instance, a light rail system running on two-minute headways with 200-passenger cars operating as single units could carry 6,000 passengers per hour. However it could carry 12,000 passengers per hour with two-car trains, and 24,000 per hour with four-car trains. A subway running eight-car trains could carry 48,000 passengers per hour. In comparison, a BRT system running 60-passenger buses on 20-second headways could carry 10,500 passengers per hour per lane. Since buses cannot operate in trains, the only way to increase this capacity is by using larger-capacity buses. However, many BRT systems such as OC Transpo Transitway, Ottawa and South-East Busway, Brisbane are based on multiple bus routes sharing a common dedicated busway to bypass congestion, especially to/from a central business district. In this form, the BRT system passenger capacity is limited by vehicle capacity times vehicle headway of the busway. As buses can operate at headways as low as 10 seconds between vehicles (compared to at least one minute headways for rail vehicles), actual busway capacity can reach passenger rail capacities. At the high end, the Lincoln Tunnel XBL bus lane carries 62,000 commuters in the 4 hour morning peak, more than any Light Rail Line. However, this lane has no stops in it. Stops increase the headway and limit a BRT lane to about 10,000 passengers per hour, even with passing lanes in the stations. Note that this is still five times the number carried in the automobiles in a congested freeway lane. The typical diesel engine on the bus causes noticeable levels of air pollution, noise and vibrations. Through developing buses as hybrid vehicles and the use of new forms of trolleybus BRT designers hope to increase ride quality and decrease pollution. As the energy use for acceleration is proportional to the vehicle mass, electric traction allows lighter vehicles, faster acceleration and energy that can be fed back into batteries or the grid through regenerative brakes. Regenerative braking is standard on modern rail systems. In contrast to BRT, both Light Rail and rapid transit require the placement of rails for the whole line. The tram usually avoids the high additional costs for the engineering structures like tunnels that need to be built for metros. Rail tends to provide a smoother ride and is known to attract significantly higher passenger numbers than road-based systems. Many BRT designers have used the need to construct power conduit systems as an argument against Light Rail, but a new proposal, known as ultra light rail, would have trams carry their own power, much like a bus, at a significant energy savings due to lack of rolling resistance. BRT in metro tunnelsA special issue arises in the use of bus vehicles in metro structures. Since the areas where the demand for an exclusive bus right-of-way is apt to be in dense downtown areas where an above-ground structure may be unacceptable on historic, logistic, or environmental grounds, use of BRT in fully underground tunnels may not be avoidable. Since buses are almost universally operated by internal combustion engines, bus metros raise ventilation issues similar to those of tunnels. In the case of tunnels, powerful fans typically exchange air through ventilation structures on the surface, but are usually placed in a location as remote as possible from occupied areas to minimize the effects of noise and concentrated pollution. A straightforward way to deal with this is to use electrical propulsion in tunnels and, in fact, Seattle in its Metro Bus Tunnel and Boston in Phase II of its Silver Line are using this method in their respective BRTs. In the case of Seattle, dual-mode (electric/diesel electric) buses manufactured by Breda were used until 2004, with the center axle driven by electric motors obtaining power from trolley wire 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 electric trolleybuses to provide service pending delivery of the dual mode vehicles in 2005. In 2004, Seattle replaced its "Transit Tunnel" fleet with diesel-electric hybrid buses, which operate similarly to hybrid cars 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 necessity for providing electric power in these environments brings the capital and maintenance costs of such routes closer to Light Rail and raises the question of building light rail instead. In Seattle, the downtown transit tunnel was closed in September 2005 for conversion to a shared hybrid-bus and light-rail facility in preparation for Seattle's Central Link Light Rail line to be operating in 2009. Implementation in the United StatesDevelopmentBefore it even had the name, Bus Rapid Transit first got major backing in the United States with the rise of federal funding for urban mass transportation during the 1960s. The first exclusive busway in the United States was the El Monte Busway, an exclusive bus lane between El Monte and Los Angeles, California. It opened in 1973. Today, American BRT initiatives in receive a great deal of support from the Federal Transit Administration. Planned BRT lines are now eligible to be included in the FTA's New Starts program, which was formerly reserved only for rail projects. That notwithstanding, the FTA, in announcing its New Starts for 2005, has rated the New Britain-Hartford Busway (Connecticut) "Recommended" but Phase III of the MBTA's Silver Line BRT project (referenced below) "Not Recommended" based on "MBTA's unreasonable operating cost assumptions." This implies that BRT will be subject to the same scrutiny as rail projects, though (also as with rail projects) the FTA will work with the localities to see if projects can be brought into compliance with requirements. PerceptionImage:Sanpab-n-mac.jpg A BRT stop on AC Transit's 72R San Pablo Rapid line in the Bay Area city of Richmond. BRT suffers from the serious image problem of buses. Quite often buses of any kind are far less attractive to "choice" riders; i.e., riders who could take transit or drive automobiles but prefer transit for certain trips because of perceived amenities of speed, convenience and/or comfort often found in light rail and subway systems. Bus systems suffer not only from poorer speed and ride quality, but from the perception of buses as a social accommodation — a means of transportation used by those who have no other choice, called "transit dependent," usually considered to comprise seniors, the disabled, youths, and the poor. In the view of some, advocacy for buses among the lower classes contributes to the socioeconomic unattractiveness of BRT. For example, in California, a 1996 lawsuit by the Los Angeles-based Bus Riders Union (site), and litigation initiated in 2005 by related groups in the Bay Area, have sought to force transit agencies to shift funds from rail and BRT construction to mixed-traffic bus projects. While many BRT systems utilize state-of-the-art buses that differ substantially from traditional buses, light rail systems are perceived of still having a higher travel quality. Some put it bluntly as "a bus is still a bus". Routes that have been converted from BRT to light rail have often seen very large ridership gains. Implementation in CanadaBRT operating systems
The cost savings of BRT have proven to be somewhat illusionary in Ottawa. The Transitway was estimated to cost $97 million when it was first proposed in 1976. However it experienced severe cost overruns and eventually escalated to $440 million. This is almost as much as it cost to build the Calgary C-Train, which is about the same size. Ottawa’s costs were about $14 million/km for BRT, while Calgary spent about $15 million/km for LRT. The Transitway was not significantly cheaper because the majority of it was cut in rock 9 metres below grade with the stations below grade, whereas most of the C-Train system was built at grade with stations at grade. Planners also assumed that BRT stations would be as cheap as LRT stations, but discovered that they needed additional passing lanes for the large number of buses, and overhead walkways for passenger safety. However, it should be noted that on large portions of the busway the service provided is almost equivalent to a light rail or rapid transit system, while providing significantly more flexibility. Ottawa is the only major Canadian city trying to handle such a large number of riders on a BRT system.
Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, the largest cities, have also metros and commuter rail systems in addition to BRT. Calgary, Edmonton, other large Canadian cities, have LRT systems in addition to BRT systems, Toronto also operates the largest remaining streetcar system in North America. As of 2007 the Calgary C-Train and Vancouver SkyTrain are carrying more riders than the Ottawa BRT system, with more capacity for growth, and users in these cities have shown a definite preference for LRT or Metro due to its more comfortable ride, speed and frequency of service. They operate BRT routes to build ridership to high enough levels to justify converting them to LRT. However, Ottawa's system was designed so that it could be converted to light rail when the city's population hit 1 million, although this has not yet happened. Operating and maintenance costsIt is difficult to find operating and maintenance costs for Ottawa, but Calgary and Vancouver indicate that at high passenger volumes, their per-passenger LRT operating costs are much lower than their BRT costs. BRT requires one driver per bus (40 to 60 passengers), while the Calgary C-Train operates with one driver per 600-passenger train, and the Vancouver Skytrain is fully automated with no drivers at all. As a result of the oil price increases of 2004-2006 and the low cost of electricity in Western Canada, diesel fuel costs about three times as much as electric power. Both Calgary and Vancouver get their power from non-polluting sources - the Calgary C-Train gets all its electricity from wind generators, while Vancouver is supplied by hydro-electric power. Note that Canadian statistics are not necessarily comparable to other countries. Canadian cities have transit riderships two or three times that of comparable American cities, while their subsidies from national governments are much lower than American or European cities. As a result, they have to recover most of their operating costs out of the fare box. Implementation in the Americas
Implementation in Europe
Implementation in Oceania
Generally, investment in BRTs is covered by state government transport agencies, rather than by corporations, since most major public transport services in the country are owned and operated by the same departments. Due to remarkably efficient state transport departments working with established private engineering and business firms, larger projects are generally planned and completed quickly with the full co-operation and support of the public. Rising fuel costs and congested roads have provided ample numbers of patrons who welcome ways to avoid peak hour traffic. List of Bus Rapid Transit SystemsBRT systems in North AmericaThe Table of Bus Rapid Transit Systems in North America holds more comprehensive information. Canada
Mexico
United States
BRT systems in South America
BRT systems in Asia (except China)
BRT systems in ChinaMore than 30 projects are being implemented or studied in China in some big cities.
BRT systems in Australasia/Oceania
BRT systems in Europe
See also
References
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