Best Practices in Bus Rapid Transit

Benjamin de la Peña Director/Community and National Strategy

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

When building new transit:

! Build a reliable service so that you get people to shift modes

! Improve the image of public transit so you get pride (and sympathy)

! Get more users and build user loyalty so that you get a constituency

When you build Bus Rapid Transit,

think about…

a service, not a route

NEW THINK: Direct services

Terminals

OLD THINK: Trunk-feeder services

Intermediate transfer stations

the system, not the mode

TRANSIT GRID

+ INFORMATION

BUS RAPID TRANSIT

LOCAL BUS

CAR SHARE

BIKE SHARE

RIDE SHARE

COMMUTER RAIL

METRO

TAXIS

SHUTTLES

an armature for growth, not the best compromise

Train&icon&by&Toby&Fitch&and&light&rail&icon&by&Hannah&Strobel&for&the&Noun&Projects&

BUS&

LIGHT&RAIL&

BUS&RAPID&TRANSIT&

METRO&

6,000&PASSENGERS&PER&HOUR&PER&DIRECTION&

60,000&

15,000&

3,000&

35,000&

Elements of Gold Standard BRT

www.brtstandard.org,

Dedicated Right-of-Way Median Alignment

Transmilenio: Bogota, Colombia

Ecovia Metrobus-Q: Quito, Ecuador

Strip-Downtown Express (SDX): Las Vegas, Nevada

Off-board Fare Collection

Metrobus: Mexico D.F., Mexico

Metroplús: Medellín, Colombia

Platform-level Boarding

Rede Integrada de Transporte (RIT): Curitiba, Brazil

RIT: Curitiba, Brazil

(Photo&courtesy&of&Richard&Weiner&of&Nelson\Nygaard&EMX: Eugene, Oregon

Buses with wide doors

Transmilenio: Bogota, Colombia

High Quality Stations

Wide, Well-lit and Weather Protected

Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Healthline: Cleveland, OH

Metroplús: Medellín, Colombia

Guangzhou, China

Passenger Information Systems

Photo:&Mariana&Gil/EMBARQ&Brasil&

Curitiba, Brazil – birthplace of BRT Ahmedabad, India

Shared Infrastructure

MyCiTi: Cape Town, South Africa

Transmilenio: Bogota, Colombia

Guangzhou, China

Service Planning

Optimize to serve multiple lines and routes

Bogota, Colombia: TransMilenio

Dedicated lanes in the most congested areas

Transmilenio: Bogota, Colombia

Some closing thoughts

Curb-side alignment doesn’t work

>  Parked vehicles block the bus lane

>  Turning movements reduce bus speeds

Two most important criteria that drive the

most successful BRTs…

Ridership

Put it where you have the largest number of

current bus riders

Bus Speeds

Put it in the routes most affected by congestion

delapena@knightfoundation.org

with thanks to: ITDP and EMBARQ

“Urban transport is a political, not a technical issue.

The technical aspects are simple. The difficult decisions relate to

who is going to benefit.”

-Enrique Peñalosa