Bus-based Rapid Transit

Following pioneering experiences in Curitiba and São Paulo, and a recent successful implementation of the Transmilenio system in Bogotá, Colombia, bus-based rapid transit (BRT) mode has emerged as a great hope for cities interested in high-quality public transport services at a moderate level of capital and operating costs. Similarly, the potential of all public transport modes featuring partially exclusive tracks is now much better understood. Including such modes in the agendas of city-specific planning studies has become common.

BRT systems are noted for the ease of adaptation to constraints of specific sites or roads. Thus, there is no “optimal” design that can be simply transferred from one city to another but a variety of successful designs. For example, bus stops and passenger access to typical schemes in the Brazilian cities of Curitiba, São Paulo, and Belo Horizonte are all treated differently, and again each of these is likely to be different to the treatment in China or Mexico. Nevertheless, there are solutions that worked well in one city and were usefully brought in and adapted to a new place. For example, Bogotá started by copying Curitiba, sent several delegations to that city, and contracted  consultants to design TransMilenio. What resulted was quite a different system, but it was based on the principles pioneered in Curitiba. On the other hand, there have been instances where serious planning and implementation issues have arisen when authorities have sought to transfer directly BRT designs which were seen to operate well in another city. For example, the “Curitiba” model was sought in San José (Costa Rica) and Puebla (Mexico), but proved inappropriate.

This page provides aims to illustrate the rich variations in design and operating practices in both older and recent BRT projects. It consists of fact sheets for several major BRT systems, links to recent Bank publications and presentations on this topic, and links to relevant external sources..

Fact Sheets

For each BRT system featured below, fact sheets cover various types of schemes, ranging from stand-alone busways to BRT networks. Due to differences in system types and information sources, not all fact sheets will include precisely the same data. Generally, the fact sheets include information on:

• City and public transport context
• Physical layout (road width and configuration, running sections, stops and junctions)
• Arrangements for general traffic
• Service operation (bus characteristics, operating policies, fare collection, enforcement)
• Institutional arrangements for the management of the system
• Scheme performance and costs
• A discussion of major advantages and shortcomings of the scheme.

The following BRT system fact sheets are currently available

• Bogotá
• Quito

System fact sheets for Curitiba and São Paulo are under preparation.

Publications and Presentations

• Latin American Experience with Bus Rapid Transport
  Paper (PDF, 132KB) and Presentation (PDF, 2.4MB) given by Gerhard Menckhoff at the ITE Annual Conference, August 2005, Melbourne, Australia
  This paper gives a descriptive overview of the BRT and major busway systems currently functioning in ten Latin American cities, and eleven additional ones where new BRTs will start operations in the next two years.  Drawing on the data collected for each system, the paper then summarizes the physical, operational and institutional dimensions of the Latin American experience and comments on their productivity, financial characteristics and public acceptance.  It concludes that BRTs can provide high-performance rapid transit services at very low cost and should thus play a major role in future public transport policy – not only in Latin America but also in cities throughout the World.
  
• Basic Busway Data in Latin America
  (PDF, 146KB)
  Jorge Rebelo, February, 2003
  Given the long experience acquired by the Brazilians and Latin Americans with busways, some operating data has been gathered which might serve as a basis of comparison for other busway projects. A number of exclusive (fully segregated), non-exclusive and mixed busway corridors in 3 cities (São Paulo, Curitiba and Porto Alegre) were selected, and, with the help of the local bus agencies, the data was organized into the tables in this document. All corridors which have a passenger per peak hour per direction volume which exceeds 10,000 in the highest direction have been highlighted. The highest peak hour per direction load appears to be in the São Mateus-Jabaquara trolleybusway (21,600) and in the Santo Amaro/ 9 e Julho busway (17,658) both in São Paulo. Those two busways also have the highest volume per day.

 Useful Links:

While we hope that that the sites below are of interest, the World Bank is not responsible for the content of external Web sites.

• The Bus Rapid Transit Policy Center’s web site offers a lot of general BRT documents, policy documents, articles, and links to relevant government and non-government organizations.
• Bus Rapid Transit Central. It is an on-line information resource on BRT Systems, which is updated bi-weekly.
• “Metro Magazine – Bus Rapid Transit” provides BRT related articles, papers, reports and links.
• Bus Rapid Transit, Volume 1: Case Studies in Bus Rapid Transit. The report describes twenty six case studies of BRT in North America and abroad. It includes several tables comparing, among others, running way characteristics, development costs, and ridership increases.
• Bus Rapid Transit, Volume 2: Implementation Guidelines. The report provides specific technical information on running ways, signal prioritization, stations and facilities, BRT vehicles, ITS applications, and operations.
• The APTA’s Resource Guide is a source of useful BRT Planning documents.
• Design Guidelines For Busway Transit by TRL (PDF, 15.1MB). This publication assembles current ideas on busway transit and offers transport planners and designers a source of practical information on their use and implementation.