BRT Infrastructure

Table of Contents

Introduction

Welcome to the Metro Route Atlas's bus rapid transit infrastructure page. Unlike the BRT List, this part of the website is detached from the other content and does not follow the same conventions. It is also much greater in scope than many other parts of the website and so it is likely that information here is out of date.

This page is broken into two main components that are somewhat related - Spreadsheets per geographic region that detail cities and their BRT infrastructure, if any, and links to a map of infrastructure. These two components do not have a one to one correspondence and there may be data in one that does not appear on the other and vice versa. In particular, the spreadsheets will detail services that are explicitly not BRT (which do not appear on the map) in order to be more research complete and prevent duplication of work. On the same note, the maps will capture infrastructure that is shorter than what we consider for the spreadsheet as well as stations. It is also intended that the infrastructure mapping will support more than just Europe, while the spreadsheets were originally intended to help with borderline BRT identification in Europe (a problem that is less pronounced in other regions). Attempts will be made to keep things consistent and in-sync between the spreadsheet and the maps.

Please be warned that the spreadsheets and maps are maintained separately. The BRT Infrastructure component has its own Changelog.

Regional Spreadsheets

Maps and Cities

In our Mapbox map, various levels bus infrastructure are displayed, including lines (physical infrastructure) and stations. These are color-coded, and use different widths and casings to indicate quality and type.

What is Included?

Only guided busways and alignments scoring 4 or higher in at least one direction on the 2016 BRT Standard are included (median, separate ROW with no parallel mixed traffic, edge condition, two way on side of one way street, centrally aligned in middle of one way street on parallel streets for each direction, aligned to boulevard (physically separated if on outer side)), in addition to all side-running dedicated bus only corridors and physically separated one-way busways that do not qualify on the ITDP standard. Physically separated curbside aligned busways on the outer side of a two-way street may be included on a case by case basis. Other single directional curb-aligned corridors will generally only be included if they connect to a higher quality corridor, even if they are contraflow relative to the street and therefore free from turning conflicts as is common in Italy. Corridors shared with tramways are typically not included (with the sole exception of Oberhausen and short shared sections) in order to limit the scope of this project to a reasonable scale.

This data is NOT consistent when it comes to curbside and one-directional corridors. We may include lower end infrastructure for one city and not show equivalent infrastructure on another.

Visuals - Overview

For ROW, we have four categories: Green (Grade Separated), Blue (Separate ROW or Physically separated via nonpermeable barrier), Orange (Physically separated but permeable, including bumpers and roadways slightly elevated above general purpose lanes), and Red (Painted lane, Painted line, or signage only). To qualify as grade separated, the busway must be bus/rail only and no crossings are allowed at all, even at stations. If a ROW shifts between fully and partially grade separated, we just use Blue. For Blue, the idea is that there is limited permeability without damaging tires, etc, so a curb needs to be significantly wide to deter vehicles entering the lane - as long as it is raised compared to both the busway and general purpose lanes, and is wider than ~15 cm (e.g. wider than 'just a curb' and enough to have plants or utility poles installed), we will consider it Blue rather than Orange.

For two-way busways, we try to route the line down the center. If a roadway only has a busway in a single direction, we try to route the line down that alignment. Different path widths are used depending on whether or not a given segment of busway or bus lane is single direction only (thinnest), used in both directions using a single lane in some form (thin), or bidirectional (regular).

As of May 2023, Median and Separate ROW corridors (Tier 1 in the 2016 BRT Standard) as well as Boulevard corridors (Tier 2) are cased to visually distinguish them from lower quality corridors. Centrally aligned one way busways may be grouped into the Tier 1 casing style; most virtual and all curbside corridors are not cased.

For Stations, we use Green icons for all guideway stations regardless of quality. Bidirectional stations on the busway in one direction only are Blue. Stations not on a busway are Red and also faded out (25% opacity) to deprioritize them visually. Note that bidirectional stations with separate platforms have the icon placed roughly between them. Station icons reflecting single directional platforms (excluding looping services and terminals) are shown smaller.

Additional Data - Overview

This section describes written descriptions used on this page and provided when selecting/hovering over stations and lines.

Alignment Key for Lines (with text derived from 2016 BRT Standard where applicable):

• Separate ROW - Bus-only corridor where there is a fully exclusive right-of-way, including busways that run adjacent to edge conditions and busways that run two-way on the side of a one-way street. Will be thickly cased on the map.
• Median - One or two-way busway median-aligned busway in the central verge of a two-way road, including busways split into two on-way pairs on separate streets with each bus lane centrally aligned in the roadway. Will be thickly cased on the map.
• Boulevard, Inner - One or two-way busway aligned to the outer curb of the central roadway on a street with a central roadway and parallel service road. Will be thinly cased on the map.
• Boulevard, Separate - One or two-way busway aligned between the central roadway and service road on a street with a central roadway and parallel service road. Will be thinly cased on the map.
• Boulevard, Outer - One or two-way busway aligned to the inner curb of the service road on a street with a central roadway and parallel service road. Will be thinly cased on the map.
• Virtual - Busway that operates bidirectionally in a single median lanes that alternates direction. Note that this may fall under Median depending on how granular we track segments.
• Curbside - One way busway aligned to curb. Includes Boulevard alignments where one side has no service road and a physically separated single direction busway. Includes alignments where one direction of travel is bus only and the other is in mixed traffic. Two-way busways are classified as 'Separate ROW' instead.

Note Key for Stations:

• [direction] Only - Station is only served in one direction, with no station in the other direction. Station icon will be smaller.
• [direction] Only on Busway - Station is only served in one direction on the Busway; a station may exist in dedicated lanes or mixed traffic in a different direction. Station icon will be colored BLUE and will be smaller.
• [direction] Platform/Platform # - Station is split into multiple platforms that are too far away from one another to be able to use a single station icon. Station icon will be smaller.
• Shared with Tram/Light Rail - Station is served by both bus and tram or light rail
• Not on Busway - Station not on busway infrastructure (station may be on curbside bus lanes not physically separated from mixed traffic, in mixed traffic, etc. and is included only for completeness). Station icon will be colored RED.

Note Key for Lines:

• [direction] Only - This section of busway is only served in one direction. Note that near the ends of bidirectional busways, there may be short segments of single direction only that are not labeled as such. Terminal loops will typically not have this label despite them naturally being one directional.
• Bidirectional Single Lane - This busway serves both directions of traffic in a single lane. Short segments will not be labeled as such.
• Reversible - This busway can change direction depending on time of day
• Shared with Tram/Light Rail/Emergency Vehicles - This section of busway is served by both bus and some other mode. This designation may be omitted if the shared portion is minimal compared to the length of busway, if the other mode is not relevant to the section of busway, or if all busways in the country or region allow the other mode by default. Examples where this is used are where a tram line shares a bus corridor temporarily, or where a bus uses a hospital backroad.

Map and City List

Cities are alphabetized by English name within each country, with countries being ordered by English name. Excessively long first level administrative division names (cough cough France) have been abbreviated to fit the cities more compactly. As with elsewhere on the website, flags use the SVG from Wikipedia directly.

Cities with minimal infrastructure (no corridors of at least 1 km in length of two-way busway) will not be boldfaced. This is to prevent a small town with a 300m busway from being treated the same way as Almere or Bogotá. As of June 2023, these can be toggled off to make the city list more readable.

Currently working on: Japan (Hita [Oita]), Canada (Winnipeg [Manitoba], Markham-Vaughan [Ontario], Ottawa [Ontario], Montréal [Québec]), Spain (Vitoria-Gasteiz [Basque Country])