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Concept
Guided bus
Summary
Guided buses are buses capable of being steered by external means, usually on a dedicated track or roll way that excludes other traffic, permitting the maintenance of schedules even during rush hours. Unlike trolleybuses or rubber-tired trams, for part of their routes guided buses are able to share road space with general traffic along conventional roads, or with conventional buses on standard bus lanes.
Guidance systems can be physical, such as kerbs or guide bars, or remote, such as optical or radio guidance.
Guided buses may be articulated, allowing more passengers, but not as many as light rail or trams that do not also freely navigate public roads.
The kerb-guided bus (KGB) guidance mechanism is a development of the early flangeways, pre-dating railways. The Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad
of 1809 therefore has a claim to be the earliest guided busway. There were earlier flangeways, but they did not carry passengers.
There are a few examples of guided buses around the world constructed since 1980.
The first modern guided busway system was opened in 1980 in Essen, Germany. This was initially a demonstration track, but it was periodically expanded and is still in operation as of 2019.
The first guided busway in the United Kingdom was in Birmingham, the Tracline 65, long, experimentally in 1984. It closed in 1987.
Based on the experience in Essen, in 1986 the Government of South Australia opened the O-Bahn Busway in Adelaide. This is a 12-kilometre guided busway.
In Mannheim, Germany, from May 1992 to September 2005 a guided busway shared the tram alignment for a few hundred metres, which allowed buses to avoid a congested stretch of road where there was no space for an extra traffic lane. It was discontinued, as the majority of buses fitted with guide wheels were withdrawn for age reasons. There are no plans to convert newer buses.
The Nagoya Guideway Bus in Nagoya, opened in March 2001 and is the only guided bus line in Japan.
The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway between Cambridge and St Ives, at , is the world's longest guided busway.
Official source
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