Bus Rapid Transit … Past, Present, Future: Evolution into a Worldwide Winner
Bibliographic record
Abstract
From the 70s, through the 90s, and into the 21st Century, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has increased its perceived (and real) stature and appeal… for users and for transportation professionals. The U.S. Federal Transit Administration now refers to it as rapid mode of transportation that can provide the quality of rail transit and the flexibility of buses. The author presented comprehensive, forward-looking papers dealing with Bus Rapid Transit to ARRB Conferences in 1972 and 1992, and published a article in ITE Journal in 1974. While this proposed paper would draw upon this background, it would primarily look at the current state-of-art, worldwide, and look forward to potential future innovations. The author's service on the Project (Expert) Panel for two TCRP research projects (A-23, BRT Implementation Guidelines, and A-23A Costs and Effectiveness of Elements) would be a key resource. These projects began in 2002 and are expected to extend into 2005. The paper will brief earlier efforts to develop bus priority on running ways for bus transit, such as: exclusive bus roadways (e.g. Shirley Highway, El Monte Busway); contra-flow exclusive bus lanes (e.g. NJ approach to Lincoln Tunnel); contra-flow, with barriers (e.g. Houston); arterial bus downtown bus lanes (e.g. New York City); busway systems (e.g. Pittsburgh, Ottawa), and guided bus systems (e.g. Essen, Adelaide). The introduction of further BRT elements will then be analyzed, through review of recent programs which demonstrate the evolution of true Bus Rapid Transit Systems. Examples include: Bogota, Colombia; Quito, Ecuador; and Curitiba, Brazil (median busway, stations, off-vehicle fares, ITS); Boston/Silver Line (tunnel, stations, low-floor/dual power vehicles, off-vehicle fares, ITS, airport access); Brooklyn, NY/Gowanus Expwy (contra-flow bus/HOV lane, with movable barriers); Brisbane, Australia (stations, ITS); Cleveland/Euclid Avenue(arterial median busway with center platforms, low-floor hybrid diesel-electric vehicles with doors both sides, ITS); Los Angeles/Metro Rapid (distinctive/low-floor vehicles, stations, signal priority, ITS); and Miami/South Dade Busway (exclusive busway, grade crossings, ITS). Looking to the future, there will be extensions of systems, as well as development of new or -related systems. Some of the key extensions will be: Los Angeles … additional services on arterials, freeways, and in exclusive busways; Boston … Third phase, directly connecting on-street with tunnel section; and New York City … extension of Gowanus Expressway bus lane through to Staten Island, with ultra clean fuel vehicles. New systems could include further applications of guided bus technology, i.e. mechanical, electronic, or optical. services may also be integrated with other advanced concepts such as managed lanes, as being applied in San Diego and proposed for the NY-NJ area.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.012 | 0.012 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.023 | 0.005 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".