I found this short article defining and describing Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). I include this as a topic under public transportation in one of the graduate courses that I teach. Fortunately, I have materials for lecture coming from previous engagements concerning BRT including lectures by my former adviser who is an expert on public transportation and has studied the BRT in Curitiba, Brazil. Here is the article appearing in Planetizen:

Source: What Is Bus Rapid Transit?

Quoting from the article:

“Bus rapid transit, known as BRT, is a form of transit widely seen by transportation planning professionals and transit officials as a less costly alternative to light rail that offers a significant improvement over other fixed-route bus services that share lanes with regular traffic and makes bus service faster and more reliable.

BRT generally includes dedicated transit-only lanes or busways for at least part of the route, as well as prioritized traffic signal timing. BRT lanes are often located in the center of the roadway to limit interaction with cars, bikes, and pedestrians. In some cases, busways are elevated or underground.”

Definitions are good in that they provide us with a characterization of the system. There are many good examples of BRT particularly in South America (e.g., Curitiba and Bogota). These should be the models to replicate or adopt in Philippine cities rather than what local officials and their consultants propose and/or implement that are basically aberrations of the BRT concept.

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