Highway Bus Rapid Transit (CM |1.5)

Bus Rapid Transit – or BRT – is bus service that includes enhanced travel ways, stations and equipment. BRT offers passengers faster, more reliable service than traditional bus service. It does so by providing more frequent service and reducing traffic delays by giving BRT vehicles priority over general traffic. This type of service can be implemented faster less expensively than rail transit while still offering many of the same attributes and benefits as rail transit. Because the public is relatively unfamiliar with BRT, public education and marketing are very important to the success of this type of service. Early and frequent communication with transit users, supporters and funders can help transit providers overcome stereotypes and misperceptions regarding bus usage, speed and reliability that can hinder BRT or freeway BOS implementation. Freeway bus-on-shoulder is simply a technique to achieve transit priority on freeways. Just as bus rapid transit often includes running-way priority via dedicated lanes and signal priority, bus-on-shoulder achieves priority by allowing bus operations on highway shoulders. Transit vehicles are allowed to travel on the shoulder when speeds decrease to a certain threshold on the mainline (typically 35 mph). Buses can then travel faster than the mainline traffic, improving service reliability and making buses more competitive with personal automobiles. This increases ridership and builds and strengthens positive perceptions of bus transit and its provider.

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