Bus Rapid Transit

More than 165 cities on six continents have implemented BRT systems. While most have been successful, some have failed – either to perform at a high level or to expand further. This chapter examines the reasons for failures, which can be as illuminating as the reasons for successes. Five case studies are included: Bangkok, Delhi, Hanoi, Lagos, and Lima. The analysis is structured according to an existing theoretical framework, which considers: (1) institutional and legislative context; (2) political leadership and commitment; (3) management of competing modes; (4) public participation; (5) funding and coordination; (6) physical design; and (7) image promotion. Preparing for the New Era of Transport Policies: Learning from Experience, 2018, copyright Elsevier, available online at: https://www.elsevier.com/books/preparing-for-the-new-era-of-transport-policies-learning-from-experience/shiftan/978-0-12-815294-2 2

... and (b) that any corridor that had scored less than two did not involve a missed BRT opportunity. ... Routes with the largest growth (with development plans factored in) were scored highest; the other routes were scored ... Table 3 summarizes potential benefits data for each corridor. ...

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has emerged as a cost-effective mass transit system for urban mobility. The low infrastructure cost, perceived simplicity and network connectivity favor the adoption of bus rapid transit system as a viable mass transit option in many cities around the world. Dhaka, the 9th largest populous city in the world and the capital city of Bangladesh is experiencing severe traffic congestion and pollution problems resulting from the massive increase in personalized motorized vehicles. The four preferred modes of transport in Dhaka city are rickshaw (38%), bus (30%), walking (19%) and other motorized vehicles (8%).The high dependence on walking and rickshaw and a low dependence on buses are a symptom of inefficient and ineffective public transport operations. Clearly public transportation in Dhaka needs to be revitalized by promoting effective and affordable mass transit system with priority considerations of the introduction of BRT system. Bus rapid transit systems provide a means of fast and effective solution to increase transit demand that would surplus the limits of ordinary bus services in mixed traffic. However, bus rapid transit has inherent limitations and an ineffective BRT system has detrimental effects in terms of capacity, safety and serviceability. Most recently three BRT lines are being planned to be implemented in three different high demand passenger corridors in Dhaka city. It is important that experience and lessons learned from other BRT systems need to be evaluated and should be duly addressed towards promoting efficient BRT in Dhaka. This study aims at to review the performance of BRT systems around the world and evaluates them in the local context focusing on the aspects of safety, accessibility, environmental quality and reliability. This paper in particular concentrates to identify the operational aspects and pragmatic measures that should be considered towards promoting an efficient and sustainable BRT system in Dhaka.

Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, is growing rapidly with an estimated population of over 15 million. The city's transport system is characterised by the critical and deteriorated traffic congestion and the poor public transport services: inefficiency, poor quality of services, lack of reliability and safety for commuters. In addressing the enormous public transport challenges and for achieving sustainable urban transport in Dhaka, the Strategic Transport Plan (STP) suggested the development of six major corridors as mass transit routes including three Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridors. In this paper an attempt has been made to discuss the concepts, needs and opportunities of the BRT system. The paper in particular highlights the Dhaka's transport problem characteristics and the potentials of the implementation of BRT system for enhanced and improved public transport services in Dhaka.

Given the spatial and economic inequalities inherent to South African towns and cities, which have been exacerbated by recent waves of urbanisation, this article aims to situate the provision of public transport in South Africa within a rights-based framework. This involves both an acknowledgement of the geographical components of human rights and of the human rights impacts of policies pertaining to transport provision and regulation. Relying upon urban theory on the 'right to the city', we illustrate how public transport, while not the subject of an independent constitutional right, is central to accessing the objects of most constitutionally ensconced socioeconomic rights, and is also an integral element of exercising various civil and political rights. Drawing from examples in contemporary Johannesburg, we accordingly argue that executive policy choices in relation to the provision and regulation of public transport should be assessed through a rights-based prism and should be subjected to dialogic interaction with the judiciary, within a substantive, rights-based understanding of mobility and urban accessibility.-1

India is one of the major developing countries in the world. With an ever increasing urban population, the major cities are facing several infrastructure deficiencies. The city of New Delhi with a population of 25 million faces the problems of severe vehicular congestion and air pollution. With a growing per capita income, the city adds 1,000 new private vehicles to the existing vehicle fleet each day. This has resulted in reduced road space per vehicle and slower traffic speeds. With negligible air pollution control enforcements, vehicular emissions from both private and commercial (multi-axle trucks and private buses) vehicles are at an all-time high. The average traffic speed in the central city during peak hours is often around 10kmph.

In order to solve the problems of congestion and pollution at the same time, a series of policy changes combined with a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) System is proposed. The policy changes will involve conversion of already existing median-side vehicular lanes into HOV/HOT lanes along all major roads in the city. Congestion pricing has also been proposed in all major business districts of the city. A better parking management with reduced number of parking spaces in the central city and tariffed parking at all places will further ensure a higher cost of driving private vehicles. Along with these policy changes, a Bus Rapid Transit system needs to be planned and constructed to provide the entire population with a safe, green and reliable alternative, which will have buses operating on dedicated lanes.

In the first phase of the BRT system, 100 kilometers of BRT lines have been planned along 5 corridors. The bus stations have been estimated to be located at a frequency of 2 km, resulting in a total of 55 bus stations. An assumption has been made regarding the operating hours of the BRT system on weekdays and weekends along with three different types of frequencies which include peak hour frequency, off-peak frequency and weekend frequency. Based on these assumptions, an estimated 170 buses will be required to smoothly operate the BRT system. Based on the infrastructure and bus estimates, the capital cost of planning and construction of this BRT system has been estimated to be $419,156,210.

In Madhya Pradesh, the only city that currently operates BRT is Indore and Bhopal. There are researches that focus on different BRT systems in the world, yet there has not been a comprehensive, systematic and comparative evaluation of the BRT experience in Madhya Pradesh. There seems to be an urgent need to study this BRT investment, with a particular focus on planning, operation and ridership characteristics with a comparative approach. This Paper analyses the BRT corridor in Indore and answers the question whether I-Bus in Indore is a success or not. In order to understand the criteria for defining success, planning, operation and ridership characteristics are identified based on the previous. The study sets the criteria in planning, operation and ridership of BRT systems drawn by previous studies and answers by people who were involved in these projects. The study reveals strength and weaknesses of the Indore I-bus. The findings provide lessons both for the future extensions of the BRT in Indore and for other cities that may consider implementing this transit technology.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems, have become a very popular mass transit option in many cities for mitigating the growing traffic congestion that characterise urbanisation. This is because BRT systems have been found to cost less, are flexible and can be built and operated incrementally. This study uses a household panel dataset and employs the difference-indifference analysis to examine how the first phase of a basic BRT-Lite system implemented in Accra, Ghana, affected commuting behaviour and traffic conditions. The results show that there was a reduction, by approximately 18 percent, in the average time it takes people to travel to work on the treatment corridor, 18 months after the introduction of the basic BRT-lite system. In spite of this, the study also found that the introduction of the new improved and affordable transit system, did not lead to any dramatic changes in how people commute in Accra. The paper explores the reasons for the modest change in how people travel.

Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, is the largest and most industrialized city with 15 million people. Due to rapid unplanned development, versatile land use, rapid population growth, poor public transport system and increase of private car users, traffic problems is worsening day by day. The only mass transit is bus which is insufficient in terms of safety, capacity, comfort and convenience. Considering the worsening congestion it is high time to develop effective mass transit system such as Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) as a means for achieving sustainable urban transport in the city. In this paper an attempt has been made to propose a conceptual physical structure of BRT for the line3 which starts from Uttara and ends in Ramna covering around 18.5 km. The BRT stations and runways are designed in a way to satisfy the ever increasing public transport demand towards achieving a sustainable urban public transport system.

Informal-Moto-Taxis are a common feature of many ‘emerging’ Asian cities. The following proposes that perhaps potential exists to formalise and integrate these services to act as a feeder to BRT systems. Several BRT systems have considered bicycle integration and others the integration of informal-modes, though currently no BRT systems in the world demonstrate BRT integration with motorcycle-taxis. The outcome of this research provides new ways of thinking about informal-transport integration, which could be useful for other cities with informal-motorcycle-taxis that are planning for BRT.

Using ‘XeÔm’ an informal-motorcycle-taxi service in Ho Chi Minh City as a case study, the research explores ways the service could be professionalised, innovated and re-branded using the planned HCM-BRT as a catalyst. The following premises that if planned appropriately, this could extend the influence of the BRT beyond the traditional 400m walking distance and enable more inter-modal trip-chaining in a way that is better adapted to the local culture, especially in a context where pedestrian accessibility is limited, hazardous and inefficient. It is argued this could encourage the much-needed modal shift towards public transport, whilst improving the working-quality for XeÔm and simultaneously making privatised mobility optional and not necessary.
To understand the viability of this concept the research is conducted in 3 steps.  (1) The proposed HCM-BRT corridor and its station precincts are analysed,  The findings revealed accessibility to the HCM-BRT has not been given enough thought which is likely to act as a deterrent to its up-take. (2) 32 XeÔm users and 16 operators were surveyed to provide an understanding of XeÔm characteristics, features and perceptions. The findings revealed that they play an important role in HCMCs transport ecosystem, however also revealed issues of pricing, safety and accountability, it is concluded that in their current disorganised form, they have a collectively damaging behaviour. The final section, attempts to test the viability of the ‘concept’ from a public and policy perspective, revealing that both XeÔm users and operators see value in the idea, 60% of users living within <1-5km of a HCM-BRT corridors would consider using the service, and >75% of operators approved of joining a service, with 68.7% willing to upgrade to a new pricing mechanism. Furthermore, two digitisation platforms ‘GrabBike’ and ‘World-Moto’ have shown themselves to be interested in the market, and the UCCI has described it as an ‘interesting idea’. The research concludes by evaluating the ‘concepts’ applicability and long-term viability, and by putting forward potential steps for further research.

Public transport in urban areas of the developing world is highly complex, due to the systems involved, the large number of origins and destinations, and the amount and variety of traffic. Istanbul is typical of these issues. Due to unplanned urbanisation over the past decades, the city is now facing a severe urban transport crisis, such as noise pollution, traffic congestion, traffic accidents, etc. These crises are mainly due to a limited transport infrastructure, a rapid increase in motor vehicle ownership and poor public transport services, etc. This study will analyse the urban transport systems of Istanbul (i.e. minibus and bus) and the extent and cause of the traffic congestion faced by the city. Through a review of the literature, this essay will attempt to clarify the ways in which the city can mitigate the above mentioned issues and improve its public transport.

Unequivocally, it has become increasingly clear that the approach of Classical Modernist planning (CMP) that prevailed after World War II emphasizes huge permissivity for low-density sprawling suburban development and the meteoric rise of motorization in cities. The implicit “predict and provide” approach of building and expansion of roads to ease congestion continued to skew investments on transportation towards permitting private automobile ownership and use at the expense of public transportation. As a result, the inherent menaces of automobile dependence are continuing in cities especially in the Global South including Abuja, Nigeria.
This study has illustrated that the prevailing CMP system in Abuja, has continually spurred and fuelled the growth of suburbia. Consequently, the emerging automobile dependent mobility pattern is indeed plagued with the challenges of CO2 emissions, traffic congestion, and related man-hour and fuel wastage. This study reveals that by institutionalizing spatial planning strategies as BRT, TOD and congestion pricing it is possible to transform sprawling automobile dependent cities to smart compact transit dependent cities. Hence, the implicit CO2 emissions and traffic congestion challenges of man-hour and fuel wastage on the AYA route in Abuja is retrofitted, and the ecological and carbon footprints is dwarfed.

Abstract This report, which is published as a two-volume set, identifies the potential range of bus rapid transit (BRT) applications through 26 case studies and provides planning and implementation guidelines for BRT. This report will be useful to policy-makers, chief ...

Accounting for 70% or more of the public transportation of people in Ghana, the Ghanaian trotro
is probably one of the most efficient paratransit systems in the world. Through its long history it has
developed an efficient and cheap system based on self-management. The main elements are so-called lorry
stations as terminals for the buses driven by trade unions as route associations. A flat rate and the “fill
and run” principle reduce competition among the tro-tros. The fares are fixed and set by the unions after
consulting with the government.
The system is in an ongoing state of transition. The state policy is like a pendulum, swinging from side
to side—from the state steering to liberal freedom and back again. Today, the pendulum is moving towards
more state control and steering out of a desire to find solutions to the heavy rising problems of traffic
congestion, pollution, and accidents. However, a solution based on big busses driven by a state-owned
company appears not to be a good fit for a poor country with weak institutions, widespread corruption,
and nepotism.
While an impressive literature exists on ‘top-down’-planning of large transport systems and is followed
by institutional recommendations from, for instance, the World Bank, this paper advocates for further
research on decentralized solutions based on local entrepreneurship.

This guide attempts to develop policy options for transport unions to consider when planning negotiations with agencies on the introduction of BRT and formalisation of the informal transport industry. It is primarily
designed for trade unions affiliated to the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), particularly in Africa and Asia where plans for BRT are rapidly expanding.

Rea Vaya, Johannesburg‘s Rapid Bus Transit system, was initiated in 2006 and three years later — in August 2009 — the first dedicated trunk route was operationalised from Soweto in the south-west to the inner city of Johannesburg. In 2013, at the time of the project, this Phase 1A service carried 43,000 passengers per day and traveled 6.5 million kms per annum on the trunk, as well as linking to feeder and complementary buses that travel in mixed traffic. The decision on the selection of the route was influenced by the facts that it is a high-demand corridor which links Soweto to Sandton and thus the poor south with the rich north. Moreover, it linked the Soccer City and Ellis Park Stadiums to the ‘accommodation hub’ in Sandton during the FIFA World Cup in 2010. In 2013, the BRT covered 25 kms of a dedicated trunk route for 18-metre articulated buses. The project involved a Peer Review assessment of the Rea Vaya system to provide guidance on future developments.

The introduction of seven corridors of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) System, TransJakarta Busway, since January 2004, has delivered Jakarta, Indonesia, to the new era of transportation tradition. Over the years, Jakarta Metropolitan Area (JMA)&#x27;s commuters have already ...

""Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has become popular as a means to provide reliable, non-automobile-based mobility and alleviate impacts of rising traffic congestion in cities around the world. To date, however, there is little empirical evidence supporting BRT’s potential to meet these objectives, and limited understanding of the urban form conditions necessary to support BRT. This research improves knowledge of BRT’s potential as an alternative to vehicle ownership at the household level and provides new evidence of the role of urban form in supporting transit investment.

I use a difference-in-differences research design to examine the changes in vehicle ownership and non-car mobility from before to after implementation of Bogotá, Colombia’s TransMilenio BRT system. With respect to vehicle ownership, my results indicate access to TransMilenio’s main trunk system is negatively related to the odds of vehicle ownership for higher wealth households. Among lower wealth households, access to the main trunk system is not related to vehicle ownership except in neighborhoods with urban forms that are supportive of walking, bicycling, and transit use. Furthermore, I find access to TransMilenio’s feeder system (which brings passengers from peripheral neighborhoods into the main trunk system) is associated with an unexpected increase in the odds of vehicle ownership. This increase may be due not necessarily to the introduction of the feeder service itself, but to concurrent policies of upgrading roadways and investing in housing stock in feeder served neighborhoods. Regardless of the cause, however, the increase in vehicle ownership among lower wealth, feeder-served households appears to be reversed in neighborhoods where urban form supports transit and non-motorized travel. This finding suggests the importance of a concerted effort to coordinate transit interventions with urban development policies that support those interventions, particularly in lower wealth neighborhoods.

I found no evidence TransMilenio access was significantly related to non-car mobility (tour frequency, travel purpose diversity, and vehicle independence) among lower wealth car-less households. Relationships between mobility and urban form were ambiguous and inconsistent. I attribute these results to limitations in the available techniques for measuring mobility. I describe approaches to improve the validity and reliability of these techniques in future research.""

Since the International Olympic Committee (IOC) selected Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympic Games, large-scale transportation infrastructures have been transforming the city. We examine the transportation planning process and consequences of implementation in the run-up to the 2016 Olympic Games by triangulating qualitative and quantitative methods. We argue that because of the low cost, speed of implementation, best-practice knowledge, existing political coalitions, ease of land acquisition, and flexibility in planning, BRTs emerged as the dominant Olympic transport solution. We find that the transport planning process has undermined the public interest and placed the burdens of implementation disproportionally on the urban poor.

Dhaka is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. The abrupt increase in population along with diverse urban land use patterns has engendered an ample travel demand. In addition, gradual deterioration of level of service of public transport system and increasing private car ownership create acute intolerable congestion. In these circumstances, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is one of the most effective short term solutions because of its high capacity as well as relatively low construction and operating cost. Despite the high opportunities of introducing BRT in Dhaka, it will face some operational difficulties such as high occupancy, high operational fleet size, small headway, priority in intersection and signal control, etc. Result shows that to satisfy the projected high passenger demand, the headway will be 16 seconds and operational fleet size; occupancy will be very high in many locations, which will make the BRT operation difficult and ineffective.

A presente dissertação aborda o tema do papel do MOVE, sistema Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) da cidade de Belo Horizonte e sua área metropolitana, na configuração das mobilidades urbanas de mulheres. O ponto teórico de partida é a virada da mobilidade e a distribuição diferenciada do capital móvel entre homens e mulheres. O sistema BRT implementado na capital mineira apresenta algumas características próprias, como o fato de se contarem com dois serviços paralelos e independentes. O serviço municipal é gerido pela BHTRANS enquanto o metropolitano é de ingerência da SETOP. Para entender como as belo-horizontinas utilizam ambos os sistemas, foi planejada uma entrevista itinerante para coletar informações qualitativas e quantitativas das usuárias, suas rotinas e suas mobilidades cotidianas. Foram consultadas vinte e três mulheres de diferentes faixas etárias – jovens, adultas e idosas – usuárias do sistema municipal e metropolitano. As entrevistas revelaram que dentre as diversas motivações das usuárias do MOVE, as principais são trabalho e estudo, assim como a realização de atividades religiosas ou de lazer. As mulheres descreveram estratégias em torno ao uso do tempo e do dinheiro, à realização de atividades de cuidado, da procura de segurança e conforto e o conhecimento de tecnologias. A aparição do sistema demandou das mulheres uma adaptação, o que mesmo após o aprendizado não significou uma satisfação por parte de todas as usuárias. Das vinte e três mulheres entrevistadas, tiveram ponderações negativas, quatro mostram-se neutras e as treze restantes avaliaram positivamente o impacto do MOVE. As potenciais variáveis explicativas para as tendências encontradas nas avaliações são a idade das mulheres (as jovens e as idosas tendem a encontrar maiores benefícios do que desvantagens no sistema) e o tempo total de viagem (quanto maior a viagem, maior a possibilidade de achar problemas no sistema). As moradoras do município de Belo Horizonte também tendem à avaliação positiva. Ainda sendo que o MOVE é parte importante dos deslocamentos das mulheres entrevistadas, elas combinam seu uso com os ônibus convencionais e a caminhada. As viagens de várias entrevistadas fogem do padrão observado na teoria, que as descreve como mais curtas, mas em maior quantidade. Contudo o MOVE foi planejado para deslocamentos maiores, o que pode explicar a contra-tendência.

Palavras chave: Mobilidade de mulheres, Mobilidade urbana, BRT, Belo Horizonte

This paper discusses how information and communication technologies (ICT) may influence travel behavior of an informal transport system, and whether and in which ways merging digital technologies represents disruption for a specific sociotechnical ensemble. For decades, ojek has been a form of informal passenger transport, based on motorcycles in Jakarta, and recently smartphone apps have become available in that sociotechnical arrangement. We randomly surveyed passengers and drivers in the central district, for both those who do and do not use these apps. Despite many similarities between both groups, the drivers who use smartphones for their trips reported higher daily incomes, longer average trip distances and a larger coverage area. Passengers using conventional ojek transport reported lower levels of both safety perception and satisfaction when compared to app-based ojek users. For both categories of user, ojek seems to compete with, complement, and be an alternative to bus rapid transit and the suburban rail system (KRL) in the area covered by our sample. The areas covered by regular buses and vans roughly match the origins and destinations of ojek trips.

Dhaka the capital city of Bangladesh having a population of 15 million has a rudimentary public transport system comprising cycle rickshaws, para-transit, taxis and buses. The rapid rise in population along with increased and versatile urban land use patterns have generated considerable travel demand as well as numerous transport problems in the city. The capacity of the road is significantly reduced by poor operating conditions, inadequate traffic management and efficient road use. The number of privately owned cars, on the other hand, is increasing day by day because of undeveloped public transport system and lack of door to door services within public transport network. Major shares of road space remain occupied by small capacity vehicles. Buses being the only mode of mass transit available in Dhaka they carry about 1.9 million passengers per day. The share of mass transit is low, 27 percent of vehicular trips where walking and other non-motorized travels still remain as the dominant travel modes.
In view of the worsening traffic congestion and deterioration in accessibility, level of service, comfort, safety and operational efficiency, it is time to introduce the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). For achieving sustainable urban transport in Dhaka, the Strategic Transport Plan (STP) suggested the development of six major corridors as mass transit routes including three BRT corridors. It will start from Uttara and end to Sadarghat covering about 21.7 Kilometer road. In this paper an attempt has been made to provide an overview of the public transportation system in metro Dhaka in terms of the key issues, characteristics and improvement options. In particular the paper discusses the aspects and potentials of introducing BRT in Dhaka to cater for ever increasing public transport demand towards alleviation of congestion level and achieving a sustainable urban public transport system.

Big investments in urban transportation infrastructure are being made and anticipated at the national level, channelized at the local level through JNNURM and NIJNNURM reforms in India. This paper argues the need to use this nationwide
infrastructural transformation as an opportunity to include groups that have hereto
been physically marginalized from urban systems. As cases, this paper looks at the
efforts undertaken in two cities – Ahmedabad and Indore – in adopting universal access guidelines in planning and building their BRT systems. It evaluates the design issues for BRT stations, their impact on accessibility and suggests and prioritizes design solutions.

In this essay I shall analyze Ankara Public Transportation Association's (EGO Genereal Management) current and future projects. As EGO, we have established and submitted for use of our citizens an infrastructural system by means of which people living in Ankara or visiting Ankara may learn instant positions, line, bus stop, movement, road and route data for busses which they need to use to arrive any point in Ankara from a fixed or mobile location (house, school, workplace) by using their telephones, smart devices and computers. With our application people have opportunity use their time more efficiently and plan their travels and with this we have minimized time loss spent for waiting busses in bus stops.