What is GRT?

Guangzhou's long anticipated Bus Rapid Transit system commenced construction on November 30, 2008 and will be operational by February 2010. With an expected peak ridership of more than 20,000 passengers per hour in one direction, the system will have more than double the passenger capacity of any other BRT system in Asia. More than 900,000 passengers will use the corridor each day. This system will be the first high capacity BRT to combine the convenience of direct services with the speed and station quality normally only found on trunk and feeder BRT systems. Major stations will include footbridges and escalators, and the system features a connecting tunnel to underground metro stations in three locations, integrating with two different metro lines. Continuous bike lanes are provided along the corridor, and 5,500 bike parking spaces have been included in the design of the BRT stations. The construction cost is around $6 million (US dollar) per kilometer.

Bus Rapid Transit

Bus Rapid Transit is a new form of mass transit which is often referred to as a kind of 'surface metro'. BRT can provide a metro-like level of service to passengers in terms of speed, capacity, reliability and image. BRT, however, can be delivered in Guangzhou in a much faster time frame and a much lower cost - around 10 times cheaper - than the metro.

BRT is a high capacity bus system with a unique identity operating primarily on a segregated right of way. BRT typically involves busway corridors on segregated lanes and modernised bus technology. In addition to segregated bus lanes, BRT systems also commonly include:

Level boarding and alighting through multiple doors
Pre-board fare collection
A regulatory and planning body specific to the BRT
Quality service contracts with multiple private operators
Comfortable shelters and stations
Clean bus technologies
Modal integration and facilities for non-motorised transport
Sophisticated marketing and customer service.

The wide variations in type, capacity and performance of BRT systems reflects the wide scope of potential applications, and the inherent flexibility of bus-based mass transit. BRT can be suitable in small cities of several hundred thousand people as well as for the largest megacities. The most famous BRT system historically was Curitiba, a small city in Brazil. But since 2004 the most noteworthy BRT implementations worldwide have all been in cities exceeding 10 million people: Sao Paulo, Seoul, Mexico City, Beijing and Jakarta.