BRT Standard

History and purpose

Technical committee and endorsers

Definition of BRT

Basic characteristics

• Dedicated right-of-way — An exclusive right-of-way is vital to ensuring that buses can move quickly and unimpeded by congestion. Enforcement of the dedicated lane can be handled in different ways, such as delineators, bollards, or colorized pavement. Non-physical barriers can additionally be used for enforcement, such as onboard cameras, regular policing at points of frequent encroachment, and high fines for corridor violation by non-authorized vehicles.
• Busway alignment — Alignment of the bus lane so that conflicts with other traffic can be minimized. Options include exclusive bus-only corridor, median aligned, busway that runs adjacent to an "edge condition" like a waterfront or a park with few intersections, and curb aligned.
• Off-board fare collection — Collecting fares before boarding or validating fares on-board, through a “barrier controlled” or “proof-of-payment” method, is one of the most important factors in reducing station dwell time as it permits boarding and alighting through all bus doors rather than obliging boarding passengers to enter through a single-door. This reduces total travel time, thus improving the customer experience and facilitating faster bus turn-around, i.e. fewer buses are needed to serve a given level of passenger demand.
• Intersection treatments — There are several ways to minimize bus delays at intersections, all of which are aimed at increasing the green signal time for the bus lane. Forbidding turns across the bus lane and minimizing the number of traffic-signal phases where possible are the most important. Traffic-signal priority when activated by an approaching BRT vehicle is useful in lower-frequency corridors, or to call for an intermediate BRT phase at locations with multi-phase signal control.
• Platform-level boarding — Having the bus-station platform level with the bus floor is one of the most important ways of reducing boarding and alighting times per passenger. The reduction or elimination of the vehicle-to-platform gap is also key to customer safety and comfort. A range of measures can be used to achieve platform gaps of less than, including guided busways at stations, alignment markers, Kassel curbs, and boarding bridges.

  Scoring

• be at least 3 km in length ;
• score at least 4 points for busway alignment;
• score at least 4 points for dedicated right-of-way; and
• score at or above a 20/38 in the BRT basic elements.

• Dedicated right-of-way
• Busway alignment
• Off-board fare collection
• Intersection treatments
• Platform-level boarding

• Multiple routes
• Diverse services - express, limited-stop, and local
• Control Center
• Located in Top Ten Corridors
• Optimized demand profile
• Multi-corridor network connections
• Hours of operation including late-night and weekends

• Passing lanes at stations
• Minimizing vehicle exhaust emissions
• Station set back from intersections
• Center stations
• Pavement quality

• Safe and comfortable stations
• Number of doors on bus
• Docking bays and sub-stops at high demand stations to improve bus flow
• Reasonable distances between stations
• Sliding doors in BRT stations

• Branding
• Passenger information

• Integration with other public transportation
• Secure bicycle parking
• Bicycle lanes
• Bicycle-sharing integration
• Pedestrian access and safety
• Universal accessibility

• Low commercial speeds
• Peak passengers per hour per direction below 1,000
• Lack of enforcement of the right-of-way
• Significant gap between bus floor and station platform
• Overcrowding
• Poorly maintained infrastructure, including busway, buses, stations, and technology systems
• Low peak frequency
• Low off-peak frequency
• Permitting unsafe bicycle use
• Lack of traffic safety data
• Buses running parallel to the BRT corridor
• Bus bunching

Scored BRT corridors

Criticisms