Bus tops

Bus Rapid Transit Systems in South America are changing the faces of their cities.

Didn't take the car to work again today? The answer to that question is increasingly becoming a yes for many of us. Bijoy and Srini noted in unison that over the past two years, the amount of time they took to commute had doubled. And the reason for this is fairly obvious. When such-and-such carmaker doubles their sales, you do know where the new cars with their glue-rubber-leather smells are going, right?

Recently, a music system maker noted that the amount of money spent by new owners on in-car entertainment is rising. Why? People are spending more time in cars; unfortunately that doesn't mean they're driving farther.

Urban planners and municipalities are building flyovers and express roads, but any road that becomes famous for being empty only gains a catastrophic rise in traffic.

In South America, two cities are demonstrating daily that smart public transport and not flyovers are the solution.You may ask, why look that far? The London tube, the Shanghai metro and the Tokyo subway are all famous, aren't they? Curitiba (in south-eastern Brazil) and Bogotá (the capital of Colombia ) have both implemented innovative systems that fit into their skimpy budgets. And, this is the crucial bit, the governments do not (have to) subsidise daily operations. All the metro systems in the world require continuous government subsidies to operate. And that subsidy comes from your pocket.

The concept is called Bus Rapid Transit or BRT and within the cities, they are branded IRT and Transmilenio. The systems are quite different. The Curitiba IRT had a long lead time from conception to operation, it was part of a planned city whose growth and structure was under close government supervision since the early 1900s.

Transmilenio, on the other hand, is more impressive, having been retro-fitted into the existing, congested traffic network of Bogotá. And that too in a matter of four or five years from start.

I was lucky enough to meet the two men who are regarded as pioneers in the field. One is Jaime Lerner, an architect who became mayor of Curitiba in the late '70s (widely considered the father of the BRT) and Enrique Penãlosa, mayor of Bogotá in 1998.

Both countries use the American system of government "" the mayors are the political leaders of municipality. Both realised the need for public transport. More importantly for us, both lacked the finances needed for the default public transport solution "" the metro "" and worked around the hurdle.

Lerner also believed (and so does Penãlosa) that car owners were being given too much priority. They chose to spend municipal funds on public transport, rather than wider roads, bigger flyovers. Penãlosa goes so far as to say, "Big roads are symbols of inequality. While good public transport systems are egalitarian."

The mayors carved out dedicated, separate bus lanes, where the IRT/Transmilenio buses would ply. They built bus stations that worked like metro stations with a singular goal "" fast boarding and alighting. Platforms are level with the bus floor, you pay a flat fare before you enter a station and you use smart cards for a cashless and quick fare payment.

Travelling in the Transmilenio was very convenient. I bought a smart card (the fare is 38 US cents, or Rs 17) and waved it over the sensor at the turnstile to enter the station. I was free to travel in any direction I chose, for as long as I liked. No ticket checkers are needed! Clear maps, schedules and LED signs guide you to the right platform (small stations have just one) and you board the bus once the station and bus doors open.

A fast bi-articulated bus will ferry you smoothly and quietly. If you need to change buses at some point, you just get off and take another. There is no air conditioning in stations. "You hardly spend any time in them. Buses come every thirty seconds to a minute, so they'd be a waste of energy, rather than a comfort," says Lerner.

The huge bi-articulated buses (mostly Volvos) are designed to carry 270 passengers and run in bus lanes. Where bus lanes cross intersections, the signals change to green to let the buses go first.

Sort of like a surface train system with buses, right? Why bother when you can simply build cool elevated light rails (like the Delhi Metro) or an invisible, but efficient metro (like Kolkata)? Because the BRT costs as little as one hundredth of the rail-based systems.

Yes, one hundredth. Light rail systems usually cost between $10-50 million per km ballpark, while metros can suck away $30-200 million per km! Transmilenio, the more expensive of the two systems cost only $5 million per kilometre.

And Penãlosa's plan included urban renewal initiatives and Bogotá now has 300 km of bicycle routes, the most in the world. Both ex-mayors agree that BRTs can be built for $1 million a kilometre, but results tend to reflect the budget.

Penãlosa highlights other BRT advantages. "Metros take 15 years to complete. The first trains can only run in four to five years. By that time, I'm no longer mayor! A BRT system can start functioning in as little as twelve months, and you should need about three to five years to cover significant high-traffic corridors. This means I earn political goodwill, I could even get re-elected!"

The strongest, "usual" BRT criticism is low-capacity. Metros are rated for 30-40,000 people per hour at peak hour in one direction. And if loads fall below 30,000, metros become highly cost inefficient. Light rails are rated lower. BRTs are supposedly good for only 20,000. Transmilenio today handles 48,000! And projects a possible loading of 55,000, and the system can be tuned to run efficiently all the way from 15,000 to 55,000!

Because BRTs usually cross regular traffic at intersections, their average speeds are generally about 5 kph lower than metros. Then again, when urban patterns change, altering bus routes is relatively inexpensive. With a metro, you end up with a hole in the ground that goes nowhere.

Lerner has another allegation to level at the metro, "We are not rats. We do not build houses under the ground. So why should we travel in them twice daily? If I lived in Paris, should I not be able to see the Eiffel Tower on my way to work?"

I did say no subsidies, remember? In Transmilenio, the government paid for the infrastructure. The mayor says, "We do that for cars, so why not for public transport?" Then, operator contracts were awarded. Operators were to procure, operate and maintain their fleets without government aid, being paid by the kilometre rather than by passenger load to avoid competition within the system.

The fare covers the operators' fee and the operational cost of the government-run control and supervision setup. Some funds from the collections are saved to dampen drastic changes in the fare, should it be needed. Fares are revised every two weeks.

Results? Seventy per cent of Bogotá uses the Transmilenio today. Traffic is down 15 per cent. Bicycle ownership is up 900 per cent. Fatal accidents are down a whopping 93 per cent. Pollution levels are down. Traffic speeds are up. Bogotá now celebrates no-car Sundays. And they're proud citizens of their city too boot.

Impressive, eh? As an aside, I asked Angelica Castro Rodriguez, the sweet, even motherly lady who's been the operational head of Transmilenio since the beginning, "How do you come to work?" She laughed. "My husband drops me in a car three days, one day I take the bus and one day I cycle down."

Why not a bus everyday? "Well, my house is still far from the Transmilenio. In two years, when the bus lane outside my house is complete, I'll take the bus daily. Besides, the cycle route I use was a part of the urban development end of the Transmilenio."

In both cities, BRTs have changed the way citizens look at and work in their cities. More to the point, they prove that rushing headlong into a hole in the ground, er... metro, or opting for a slick light rail system is not always the right public transport solution.

Rodriguez summed up the experience, "At Transmilenio, we don't really care whose buses (our trip to South America was at the behest of Volvo India) our system uses.Or for that matter whether it is a bus or a rail system. Today, BRT is the most cost-effective solution to our traffic needs. Tomorrow, Transmilenio may need to be integrated with other solutions, which could be a light rail or a metro.

But in 1998, Bogotá needed a solution quickly. And we needed it to work within our budget. We needed it to start fast. BRT proved to be the right solution for us."