Ten Years After Redefining BRT, What’s Next for TransMilenio?

Great film profiling a strategy that would work exceptionally well in congested US cities like Los Angeles.  I can see BRTs moving hundreds of thousands of people a day on LA's 10, 101, 405, and 710 freeways as well as wide boulevards like WIlshire, Ventura Venice, Van Nuys and Olympic.  Undoubtedly the car commuters will cry foul but this is the sort of program city leaders in LA and elsewhere should be advocating for.  In LA we have the Metro Orange Line and plans for a very modified BRT on Wilshire but our vision isn't nearly grand enough.

Of course the only reason that "benefit" is necessary, is because buses are much less reliable w/r/t timing -- but that unreliability is a huge drawback...

This clip is worth 10,000 words.

Trains can have passing lanes, too. They just never need the capacity except on insanely overcrowded lines.

About the only time you'd want buses leaving in a peculiar order is when some of the buses are running way off-schedule – that implies a real weakness to this system, not a strength.

Anyway, almost any conceivable benefit to surface buses can be realized in a surface rail system that leaves room for bustitution during maintenance times.

Bolwerk, youve never had a delay in boarding because of someone in a wheelchair or stroller....regardless of mode of travel? Or someone holding the doors open for their friend?

@Jass:twitter: of course, and so what?  On a properly designed system, you can make up time by going a little faster to stay on schedule. Presumably this is true for TM too. I don't think being able to leave in semi-random order is a problem per se, but I don't see a benefit either.

@jass:disqus Ok, you're right, the type of tires and track surface are mostly irrelevant (although historically there's generally a correlation between grade separation and rail).

But I think my point still holds: the ability you laud, to pass/leave in arbitrary order, is only relevant when the system timing is so sloppy as to require it—and such sloppy timing inherently restricts the speed and capacity of the system. Morever, using this ability on a regular basis will make the problem worse.

So rather than a positive, really this is a workaround for a very large negative.  If Bogotá wants to increase capacities, this is a sign that they've got some pretty fundamental changes to make.

[Of course, as Alon says, passing can be (and very often is) done on any rail as well, and is very useful for handling expresses etc.]

p.s. Don't begin your answer with "No.", it's obnoxious.

@Jamesboat:disqus : I have been on the Green Line.  So what? You can't use a bad implementation to prove a good implementation is inferior to a worse implementation. Miles is absolutely right: timing is everything, and buses pulling up and leaving semi-randomly is just not a good sign

@Jamesboat:disqus : besides capacity (um, don't even try that one), more punctual operation?  Anyway, I don't think the TM implementation is that bad. I don't see a compelling reason to change it to rail unless they really do need more capacity - in which case, they probably should probably go underground anyway.  For that matter, I don't see why BRT should be operating in such a way where buses are platforming together. It's a sign sign that the BRT system isn't solving the issues BRT sets out to solve over conventional bus service.  It's just that you're calling something that's probably a bug a feature.

I don't know how bad the Green Line is.  I haven't ridden it since 2002. But if what you say about it is true, that it spends much of its time waiting for trains ahead to clear, there is something wrong with it. I'm just taking your word for it, but if that's the case solutions include: longer trains, more frequent trains, maybe supplementary local bus service, better operational practice (signals?), or maybe it really is at its capacity limit. If the latter is really true, any solution chosen to add capacity has a high upfront cost, and a new busway is hardly the cheapest or lowest-impact option. Either way, vehicles should not be arbitrarily passing each other.

Uh, no, you can't have a ten-car "bus" – unless you're calling the types of vehicles used in Montreal buses.  Certainly not with TM's busways, which aren't even fixed guideways, and even if that weren't a problem they aren't exactly impeccably straight.  What do you propose next? A high-speed bus? Articulated buses are probably about the practical limit to vehicke lengths without a fixed guideway; get much longer than that an turning radii need to be insane. (I suppose computerized guidance could make longer vehicles possible, but I have never heard of such things in practice.)

Regardless, a huge part of the point of transit is to prevent vehicles from arbitrarily doing anything. The best thing for them is to stay on schedule so they don't interfere with vehicles behind them, and so passengers don't miss connections. How do you make a ten-car bus arbitrarily pass another ten car bus? If it's not possible with trains, as you keep saying, it would be even harder with buses.

And where the hell are you that building track is more expensive than building a busway? Even in mixed traffic urban streets, it sounds iffy and it gets positively ridiculous on unimproved land or when grade separation is called for. It sounds like more of the same ol' buses are cheaper myth.

I'm familiar with that kind of stuff. It's cute, but it doesn't really demonstrate utility of buses 100' long, let alone 500', in any place where it might be practical to put long buses. I somehow doubt even Brasilia was built with such vehicles in mind.  What such things can't do it make 90-degree turns in a typical urban street, and they can't make even less sharp turns at reasonable speed, because they don't have a fixed guideway. And then, you have to consider that without some kind of guidance system vehicles behind will turn more sharply than vehicles ahead – it is not just a question of segment length. You can say you only need to build them the busways they would need, but why?  An LRT guideway is cheaper and allows for better service, and can go places the longer buses cannot go, and, despite what you keep saying, even can pass more efficiently if passing sidings are incorporated – and then LRT has lower operating costs above the rails too.

Basically, it's what always happens once you start blowing money on fancier buses:  they get more expensive to operate and maintain than trains. Leave them for the low-rider local/feeder services they're built for, where there is no point in spending money on infrastructure beyond curb signs and the odd shelter.  There is a reason "long" buses are toys used at Disneyland, not mission-critical transit scenarios. (BTW, that bus-train is not very long.  It might be a little longer than an articulated bus, with a fraction of the capacity.)

I agree with some of the commenters here that rail is better, however even in rich world cities like Melbourne, where I live, a BRT system could have a role to play as a laterally-oriented complement to the existing radial train and tram network. We have a 'ring road' system of freeways to allow travel between suburban regions, however public transport is all oriented towards the city - a network of BRT lines could be developed at a lot less expense (and therefore would be more politically possible) and it could provide the kind of speeds and frequency that would make it a genuine choice for lateral commuting. People going from middle suburb to middle suburb, or peripheral suburb to middle suburb to middle suburb, would have a non-automobile choice, finally. Existing buses are too slow to give that choice in a meaningful way, but they could be made to connect with the new BRT system, in fact such integration would be essential. And once the route is established over time, upgrade to rail will be possible - I think in non-radial systems, people are reluctant to sink costs into rail without 'proof' that it will be used. BRT could help us make that collective transition mentally...