The costs associated with it are probably not worth the benefits. Besides the costs to install and operate the gates you also have extended wait time at the intersections making cars sit there and idle longer causing emissions as well as un-needed delay. What is really needed sounds like you need the public to be cognizant that buses are there in the first place.Originally posted by AHM
We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes - Fr Gabriel Richard 1805
I realize this is an older post, but . . .
“Rail-ready" B.R.T. isn’t as simple as it sounds. If the system is within the street right-of-way there will be construction disruptions to traffic and businesses along the corridor twice: once when the BRT is built and then again when it is upgraded to LRT. However if it is within the street right-of-way it’s possible to limit the re-construction to LRT to a few blocks at a time, which might not be the most efficient way to build it, but it will allow the BRT system to continue to operate an near normal levels during construction.
If the system is NOT within the street right-of-way there will fewer disruptions to businesses. However this makes it much harder to maintain transit service during the construction period because the places a BRT vehicle can get on or off the system are much farther apart. That means longer detours. The City of Ottawa is having this problem. It is currently in the process of planning the logistics of replacing some of its BRT lines with LRT (in order to tunnel under the City Centre). One solution they are considering is adding additional lanes to a nearby freeway to allow the BRT vehicles to temporarily bypass the construction area. They are effectively having to build a temproary parallel BRT system to allow the BRT to operarte while the LRT is constructed. That's not a cheap solution.
I've come to the conclusion that the future is probably going to be automated B.R.T.
Technology is quickly becoming available to lengthen the vehicles and to increase capacity by taking the steering wheel out of a human being's hands.
Sounds like 'rails' to me. A lot simpler than some form of 'automated', self-steering BRT, with lots fewer parts to potentially fail and gum up the works.
Mike
Keep in mind that technology advances much slower than most realize. The current Hybrids have been under development for the last 20 years and still represent a tiny portion of the overall automotive fleet. I realize that steering technoclogies and avoidance technologies are now on the market and are being implemented by Ford, Mercedes, Audi, and who knows who else. Call me old fashioned, but I till think you need a brakeman at least when operating in mixed at grade traffic, otherwise this will be flattening slow moving grandmas and Rover.
We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes - Fr Gabriel Richard 1805
It's worse than that, it's "like rail, except with low capacity and the ability to get stuck forever in traffic".
Ottawa is building a 12 km separate grade LRT though the downtown core, including a tunnel. During morning rush hour (RH), all passengers on feeder buses will have to transfer to train cars - roughly 100 per minute - at each end of the line. During afternoon RH, the same volume of passengers on train cars will have to transfer to feeder buses heading home.
Is there an example somewhere of all bus/LRT passengers switching to the other mode at this volume? I really suspect that the train->bus transfer is going to be a mess, but will keep an open mind if someone can provide an example of this working.
It's been done in a number of places, since it is fundamental to the workings of hub and spoke systems in general. Most any transfer hub of any form of transport with a capacity mismatch - every commercial airport in the world, numerous rail systems, etc. should be working examples. I really doubt it's going to be an large problem, else I would have expected to see some more treatment of it in my reading on pulse-point timetabling in various best practice manuals.
I think our planned LRT is too short.
Our current BRT carries 10,000 pphpd (passengers per hour per direction), and is fully loaded during rush hour. The LRT will replace the centre section of our BRT, therefore, 10,000 people per hour have to transfer to buses in the outgoing direction (buses are currently full at the stations where passengers will eventually alight).
Apparently, the world record for peak BRT station loading is in China, something like 8,500 passengers per hour...but that is in BOTH directions. The world record is, therefore, only just a bit over 4,000 passengers per hour. We need 10,000 day one.
I think this is going to blow up.
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