Latin American Experience with Bus Rapid Transit

Since the 1970s, transport planners have commented on the busway operations that had been pioneered in several Brazilian cities - especially Curitiba which was then a relatively small city. Although these initial experiences were highly successful, few other cities were emulating that type of urban transit approach which was often considered a special solution good for Curitiba, but not replicable elsewhere, especially outside Brazil. Then, twenty years later, Quito and Bogotá decided to implement busway-based mass transit, copying several of the features of Curitiba and adapting them to their own circumstances. The success was stunning and immediate, and many delegations from around the world have been visiting those three cities to learn from their experience. Bus Rapid Transit (BRT, a fairly recent term) is now being planned in many cities on all continents. This paper gives a descriptive overview of the BRT and major busway systems currently functioning in 10 Latin American cities, and 11 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, where budget constraints make it impossible to quickly build large-scale freeway or rail systems.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/1933452080
• Corporate Authors:

  Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE)

  Washington, DC  United States 

  ARRB

  Melbourne, Victoria  Australia 
• Authors:
  • Menckhoff, Gerhard
• Conference:
  • ITE 2005 Annual Meeting and Exhibit Compendium of Technical Papers
  • Location: Melbourne , Australia
  • Date: 2005-8-7 to 2005-8-10
• Publication Date: 2005

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Appendices; CD-ROM; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 25p
• Monograph Title: ITE 2005 Annual Meeting and Exhibit Compendium of Technical Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bus rapid transit; Bus transit; Busways; Data collection; Implementation; Policy making; Public policy; Rapid transit; Transportation planning; Urban transit
• Geographic Terms: Brazil; Latin America
• Subject Areas: Operations and Traffic Management; Policy; Public Transportation; Research; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01006806
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 1933452080
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 29 2005 11:09AM