I can totally get on board with this for self-driving guided busses in special bus lanes. That’s something that many cities and countries already do anyway, and it’s basically a cheaper, more maintainable version of a tram, and you can even build special battery-powered, tram-like busses (with overhead or induction charging stations) for this specific purpose.
For example, they got these bad boys with overhead charging in Amiens, France:
Here’s an example with optical guidance from Yibin, China:
Meanwhile, my city bitches about putting in a sign for a bus stop.
I kinda wanted to make a “joke” twitter account called “ShowMeYourBusStop” where people could send pics of this shitty excuses we have for bus stops in the US.
Idk a tram is still superior in all aspects apart from purchase price. Especially maintainability being easier /cheaper on asphalt vs steel rail i absolutely do not buy. But at least these things get largely dedicated right of ways so the upgrade to a real tram is much simpler. Bus ride quality is also absolutely dogshit compared to trams. BRT and this kind of tech augmented BRT is fine if your city is just learning to do transit. It’s good even. But if they have learned a bit rails will always be king for mass transit.
I like trams, too, but based on the local political discussions that I’ve seen so far, one of the main challenges in building a tram network is the high costs for rails, overhead wires, etc., so guided busses are a good option for many (especially smaller) cities. I’m no expert, though, so I may be wrong, and I don’t know how these options would scale.
I can totally get on board with this for self-driving guided busses in special bus lanes. That’s something that many cities and countries already do anyway, and it’s basically a cheaper, more maintainable version of a tram, and you can even build special battery-powered, tram-like busses (with overhead or induction charging stations) for this specific purpose.
For example, they got these bad boys with overhead charging in Amiens, France:
Here’s an example with optical guidance from Yibin, China:
Meanwhile, my city bitches about putting in a sign for a bus stop.
I kinda wanted to make a “joke” twitter account called “ShowMeYourBusStop” where people could send pics of this shitty excuses we have for bus stops in the US.
Idk a tram is still superior in all aspects apart from purchase price. Especially maintainability being easier /cheaper on asphalt vs steel rail i absolutely do not buy. But at least these things get largely dedicated right of ways so the upgrade to a real tram is much simpler. Bus ride quality is also absolutely dogshit compared to trams. BRT and this kind of tech augmented BRT is fine if your city is just learning to do transit. It’s good even. But if they have learned a bit rails will always be king for mass transit.
I like trams, too, but based on the local political discussions that I’ve seen so far, one of the main challenges in building a tram network is the high costs for rails, overhead wires, etc., so guided busses are a good option for many (especially smaller) cities. I’m no expert, though, so I may be wrong, and I don’t know how these options would scale.