REPLICATING BRT - LESSONS FOR ASIA FROM AUSTRALIA

Abstract:

High quality Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) that provides fast, reliable, comfortable and safe travel can provide most of the benefits of urban rail mass rapid transit (MRT) at far lower cost. While South America leads the world in innovative BRT implementation and operation over 30 years as an alternative to other forms of urban mass rapid transit, BRT has mixed success in the rest of the world including Asia. Although several cities in Asia are now flirting with their first BRT lines some are of less than desired quality and others of good design quality are not planned for high demand corridors. The future for BRT in Asia should be bright but is still uncertain.Australia too has had almost three decades experience with BRT implementation. Three of Australia’s six capital cities now have BRT schemes. The circumstances under which these BRT systems were implemented, and have been operated, may provide lessons for Asian transport policy makers to increase the chances of implementation of BRT and then to maintain political support for continued BRT development. Several factors are found to be important to implementation of BRT in Australia including (a) the presence of a favourable “policy window” for BRT, (b) the presence of a technical and/or a political champion, and (c) a holistic policy framework and plan where BRT’s role and that of other modes including rail and other bus, is clearly articulated. This is not atypical of other cities’ experiences with BRT or other transport innovation. Continued political enthusiasm for BRT depends on BRT providing demand responsive high quality services that achieve high passenger acceptance. To achieve this requires BRT to be planned and programmed as a key or main rapid transit mode for the long term and is accordingly designed to be of suitable quality, and as a network with integrated services and “software’ such as appropriate forms of regulation, operating contracts, ticketing, passenger information and well designed facilities both on and off the BRT network. To meet the above requirements, requires that transport policy and technical agencies plan and program for the long term, to be technically adroit and be capable of realistically assessing what BRT can do and cannot do thus underpinning initial implementation success. Unfortunately, these requirements may not be easily achieved in developed and developing cities if technical competence is replaced by mere advocacy alone.