Center for Excellence on Bus Rapid Transit

Across Latitudes and Cultures – Bus Rapid Transit (ALC-BRT) is a Centre of Excellence for Bus Rapid Transit development implemented in Santiago, Chile, and financed by the Volvo Research and Educational Foundations (VREF).

This CoE was established in May of 2010 and is working as a consortium of five institutions that include Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Technical University of Lisbon, The University of Sydney and EMBARQ – The WRI Center for Sustainable Transport, including its network of centers of sustainable transport.

The main goal of this Centre of Excellence is to develop a new framework for planning, design, financing, implementation and operation of BRT in different urban areas, giving clear guidelines to decision makers on when and how BRT projects can effectively enhance mobility and meet accessibility needs. These guidelines will be a major milestone to change the way decision makers address investment and design plans for configuring urban mobility systems. An essential goal of the ALC-BRT CoE is to identify elements which are transferable between existing and prospective BRT systems and elements that are project site specific.

Even though BRT is certainly not the panacea for all urban transport problems, we consider it a key element in the development of sustainable future urban transport since BRT systems are:

(1) Affordable and thus within reach for many metropolitan areas;
(2) Flexible and adaptable to many cities and their growth profiles;
(3) Implementable quickly;
(4) Potentially as attractive for users as rail-based public transport alternatives; and
(5) Feasible instrument to make metropolitan areas more sustainable from the economic, financial, social, political, technical and environmental perspectives

The objective is to support the successful deployment of BRT, through the identification and effective communication of the conditions necessary for success at the strategic, tactical and operational decision levels.

Focus is not only at the BRT project level, but also on how BRT projects interact with other elements of the urban system so that its complete mobility system is transformed and the whole city becomes more sustainable and attractive.

The aim is to:

(*) Support the successful deployment of BRT, through the identification and effective communication of the conditions necessary for success at the strategic, tactical and operational decision levels;
(*) Define an envelope of efficient solutions as a function of key parameters, such as population density, demand levels, growth expectations, urban and road space and budget;
(*) Identify key design dimensions and compare solutions with competing technologies under different social, political and economic conditions; and
(*) Study policy issues broadly, from a political viewpoint to practical implementation details, to ensure the system’s success and sustainability. Central to this is an educational strategy aimed at ensuring acceptance from key stakeholders who influence investment decisions in public transport.