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Transport or transportation is the movement of people and goods from one place to another. The term is derived from the Latin trans ("across") and portare ("to carry").
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Aspects of transport
The field of transport has several aspects: loosely they can be divided into a triad of infrastructure, vehicles, and operations. Infrastructure includes the transport networks (roads, railways, airways, waterways, canals, pipelines, etc.) that are used, as well as the nodes or terminals (such as airports, railway stations, bus stations and seaports). The vehicles generally ride on the networks, such as automobiles, bicycles, buses, trains, airplanes. The operations deal with the control of the system, such as traffic signals and ramp meters, railroad switches, air traffic control, etc, as well as policies, such as how to finance the system (for example, the use of tolls or gasoline taxes).
Broadly speaking, the design of networks are the domain of civil engineering, architecture and urban planning, the design of vehicles of mechanical engineering and specialized subfields such as nautical engineering and aerospace engineering, and the operations are usually specialized, though might appropriately belong to operations research or systems engineering.
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Modes and categories
Modes are combinations of networks, vehicles, and operations, and include walking, the road transport system, rail transport, ship transport and modern aviation.
Categories of transport
(Non-human) animal-powered transport is a broad category of the human use of non-human working animals (also known as "beasts of burden") for the movement of people and goods. Humans may ride some of the larger of these animals directly, use them as pack animals for carrying goods, or harness them, singly or in teams, to pull (or haul) sleds or wheeled vehicles.
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Vehicle
Vehicles are non-living means of transportation. They are most often man-made (e.g. bicycles, cars, motorcycles, trains, ships, and aircraft), although some other means of transportation which are not made by man can also be called vehicles; examples include icebergs and floating tree trunks.
Vehicles may be propelled by animals, e.g. a chariot or an ox-cart. However, animals on their own, though used as a means of transportation, are not called vehicles. This includes humans carrying another human, for example a child or a disabled person.
Most land vehicles have wheels. Please see the wheel article for examples of vehicles with and without wheels.
Movement without the help of a vehicle or an animal is called locomotion. The word vehicle itself comes from the Latin vehiculum.
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Automobile
An automobile is a wheeled passenger vehicle that carries its own motor. Different types of automobiles include cars, buses, trucks, and vans. Some include motorcycles in the category, but cars are the most typical automobiles. The term automobile is derived from Greek auto- ("self") and Latin mobilis ("movable"), referring to the fact that it "moves by itself". Earlier terms for automobile include motorwagen, and horseless carriage. Although the term "car" is presumed to be derived through the shortening of the term "carriage", the word has its origin before 1300 A.D. in English as, "carr"—derived from similar words in French and much earlier Greek words—for a vehicle that moves, especially on wheels, that was applied to chariots, small carts, and later—to carriages that carried more people and larger loads. As of 2002 there were 590 million passenger cars worldwide (roughly one car for every ten people), of which 140 million in the U.S. (roughly one car for every two people) *.
The automobile was thought of as an environmental improvement over horses when it was first introduced in the 1880s. Before its introduction, in New York City alone, more than 1,800 tons of manure had to be removed from the streets daily, although the manure was used as natural fertilizer for crops and to build top soil. In 2006, the automobile is recognized as one of the primary sources of world-wide air pollution and a cause of substantial noise pollution and adverse health effects.
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Bus
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A bus is a large automobile intended to carry numerous persons in addition to the driver and sometimes a conductor. The name is a shortened version of omnibus, which means "for everyone".
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History
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The omnibus, the first organized public transit system, may have originated in Nantes, France in 1826, when Stanislas Baudry, a retired army officer who had built public baths (run from the surplus heat from his flour mill) on the city's edge, set up a short stage line between the center of town and his baths. The service started on the Place du Commerce, outside the hat shop of M. Omnès, who displayed the motto Omnès Omnibus ("Omnès for all") on his shopfront. When Baudry discovered that passengers were just as interested in getting off at intermediate points as in patronizing his baths, he shifted the stage line's focus. His new voiture omnibus ("carriage for all") combined the functions of the hired hackney carriage with the stagecoach that travelled a predetermined route from inn to inn, carrying passengers and mail. His omnibus featured wooden benches that ran down the sides of the vehicle; entry was from the rear.
There is also a claim from the UK where in 1824 the first "bus route" is claimed to have run from Market Street in Manchester to Salford.
Whether by direct emulation, or because the idea was in the air, by 1832 the idea had been copied in Paris, Bordeaux and Lyons. A London newspaper reported in July 4, 1829 that "the new vehicle, called the omnibus, commenced running this morning from Paddington to the City". This bus service was operated by George Shillibeer.
In New York, omnibus service began in the same year, when Abraham Brower, an entrepreneur who had organized volunteer fire companies, established a route along Broadway starting at Bowling Green. Other American cities soon followed suit: Philadelphia in 1831, Boston in 1835 and Baltimore in 1844. In most cases, the city governments granted a private company—generally a small stableman already in the livery or freight-hauling business—an exclusive franchise to operate public coaches along a specified route. In return, the company agreed to maintain certain minimum levels of service—though one of these standards was not upholstery. The New York omnibus quickly moved into the urban consciousness. In 1831, New Yorker Washington Irving remarked of Britain's Reform Act (finally passed in 1832): "The great reform omnibus moves but slowly."
The omnibus had many repercussions for society, particularly in that it encouraged urbanization. Socially, the omnibus put city-dwellers, even if for only half an hour, into previously-unheard-of physical intimacy with strangers, squeezing them together knee-to-knee (illustration, left). Only the very poor remained excluded. A new division in urban society now came to the fore, dividing those who kept carriages from those who did not. The idea of the "carriage trade", the folk who never set foot in the streets, who had goods brought out from the shops for their appraisal, has its origins in the omnibus crush.
The omnibus also extended the reach of the North Atlantic post-Georgian, post-Federal city. The walk from the former village of Paddington to the business heart of London in the "City" was a brisk one for a young man in good condition. The omnibus offered the nearer suburbs more access to the inner city.
More intense urbanization was to follow. Within a very few years, the New York omnibus had a rival in the streetcar: the first streetcar ran along The Bowery, which offered the excellent improvement in amenity of riding on smooth iron rails rather than clattering over granite setts, called "Belgian blocks". The new streetcars were financed by John Mason, a wealthy banker, and built by an Irish contractor, John Stephenson. The streetcars would become even more centrally important than the omnibus in the future of urbanization.
When motorized transport proved successful after c. 1905, a motorized omnibus was for a time sometimes called an autobus.
Buses began to replace streetcars in the U.S. because of a continuing series of technical improvements: pneumatic "balloon" tires during the early 1920s, monocoque body construction in 1931, automatic transmission in 1936, the diesel-engine bus in 1936, the first acceptable 50+ passenger bus in 1948, and the first buses with air suspension in 1953.
Bus services were a focal point in the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s in the United States. In the period after the American Civil War ended in 1865, racial segregation in public accommodations, including public transport such as rail and bus services, was enforced through Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. These were made to prevent African-Americans from doing things that a white person could do. For instance, Jim Crow laws required bus drivers to enforce separate seating sections. These laws and enforcement varied among communities and states. In 1955, after a long day of work, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a public bus, bringing attention to the injustice of differential and degrading treatment based solely upon race. This incident, boycotts of bus services, other protests, and court challenges led a U.S. Supreme Court ruling banning segregation on public buses and helped lead the U.S. Congress to the pass the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act which clarified the unconstitutionality of public racial segregation laws.
In some areas of the United States, a forced busing system has been used to achieve racial desegregation of public schools. Under such a busing plan, children do not necessarily go to the nearest school geographically, but to such a public school in the same district where there is an appropriate mix of racial diversity.
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Types of bus service
Buses are an intrinsic part of everyday life, and play an important part in the social fabric of many countries. Many urban public transportation systems rely on a bus network to provide services. The largest single city bus fleet in North America is in New York City.
Bus services can generally be categorized into several different categories. Local transit buses provide public transit within a city or one or more counties. Intercity and interstate buses (often called interprovincials in other countries) provide transit specifically between cities, towns, rural areas, as well as between states. They generally provide far less stops than would be found on local bus routes. Greyhound Bus Lines and Trailways Transportation System are examples of interstate bus systems. Some local transit systems offer some intercity bus lines that provide transit from one city or town they service to nearby city or town served by another transit agency. Intercity bus services have become an important travel connection to smaller towns and rural areas that do not have airports or train service. A new phenomenon in intercity bus travel has been the Chinatown bus.
Some public transit bus systems offer express bus service in addition to local bus lines. While local lines provide frequent stops along a route, express lines make far fewer stops in order to speed up the travel time between key destinations on the route. For example, an express bus line may provide speedier service between a local airport and the downtown area of a nearby city.
Shuttle bus service provide transit service between two destinations, such as an airport and city center. Shuttle bus services are often provided by colleges, airports, shopping areas, companies, and amusement destinations.
Tour bus service provides transit for tourists to see of notable sites by bus. City tour buses often simply pass by the sights while a tour narrator describes them while longer distance tour buses generally allow for passengers to disembark at each sight. Some places have buses that resemble streetcars in order to attract tourists or for other appearance purposes. A similar phenomenon is Duck Tours, which uses amphibious DUKWs converted into buses/cruise boats for tour purposes.
School bus service provides transit to and from school for school students. Some private schools use school buses only for field trips or sports events. Some school systems, such as the San Francisco public school system, do not operate their own school bus system but instead rely on the local public transit bus system to provide transportation for the system.
Charter bus operators, provide buses with properly licensed bus drivers for hire.
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Decline of the intercity bus
With the continued increase in urbanization and automobile ownership rates, the usage of intercity bus services like Greyhound Lines has steadily decreased over the past several decades. Revenue problems for intercity fleets have necessitated government subsidies to continue operations. Many bus stops and routes to less populous destination have been shut down to lower operating costs.
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BRT (BUS RAPID TRANSIT)
Bus rapid transit (BRT) is a broad term given to a variety of different transportation systems that, through infrastructural and scheduling improvements, attempt to use buses to provide a service that is of a higher quality than an ordinary bus line. Each BRT system utilizes different improvements, although many improvements are shared by many BRT systems. The goal of such systems is to at least approach the service quality of rail transit while still enjoying the cost savings of bus transit. The expression "BRT" is mainly used in North America; elsewhere, one may speak of Quality Bus or simply bus service while raising the quality.
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Etymology
"Bus rapid transit" takes part of its name from "Rapid Transit" which describes a high-capacity rail transport system with its own right-of-way, its alignment often being elevated or running in tunnels, and typically running long trains at short headways of a few minutes. Because of the name similarity one tends to associate the merits of "Rapid Transit" also with the newer "BRT" expression.
The BRT term encompasses a broad variety of modes, including those known or formerly known as express buses, limited busways and rapid busways.
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What makes a BRT
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These bus systems can come in a variety of different forms, from dedicated busways that have their own rights-of-way (e.g., Ottawa's Transitway or the Los Angeles LACMTA Orange Line) to bus services that utilize HOV lanes and dedicated freeway lanes (e.g., Honolulu's CityExpress) to limited stop buses on pre-existing routes.
An ideal bus rapid transit service would be expected to include some or all of the following features:
High-frequency, all-day service: Like other forms of rapid transit, BRT serves a diverse all-day market. Commuter express buses that run only during rush hours are not Bus Rapid Transit.
Bus-dedicated, grade-separated right-of-way: Right-of-way may be separated from all other traffic and dedicated to bus use. Such right of way may be elevated; on rare occasions, the right of way may be modified rail right of way.
Bus streets and busways: A bus street or transit mall can be created in an urban center by dedicating all lanes of a city street to the exclusive use of buses.
Bus lanes: A lane on an urban arterial or city street is reserved for the exclusive or near-exclusive use of buses.
Bus signal preference and preemption: Preferential treatment of buses at intersections can involve the extension of green time or actuation of the green light at signalized intersections upon detection of an approaching bus. Intersection priority can be particularly helpful when implemented in conjunction with bus lanes or streets, because general-purpose traffic does not intervene between buses and traffic signals.
Traffic management improvements: Low-cost infrastructure elements that can increase the speed and reliability of bus service include bus turnouts, bus boarding islands, and curb realignments.
Off-bus fare collection: Conventional on board collection of fares slows the boarding process, particularly when a variety of fares is collected for different destinations and/or classes of passengers. An alternative would be the collection of fares upon entering an enclosed bus station or shelter area prior to bus arrivals (similar to how fares are collected at a kiosk before entering a subway system). This system would allow passengers to board through all doors of a stopped bus.
Level boarding: Many BRT systems also use low floor buses (or high level platforms with high floor buses) to speed up passenger boardings and enhance accessibility.
Tram-like characteristics:
Recent technological developments such as bi-articulated buses and guided buses have benefited the set up of BRT systems.
The main developments are:
improved riding quality (guided buses, electronic drivetrain control smoothing the operation)
increased capacity (bi-articulated or double decker)
reduced operating costs (hybrid electric power train)
Acceptance of BRT may increase using trolley-buses, because of the lower gaseous and noise emissions. The penalty of having additional costs for catenaries is outweighed by the increasing fuel prices.
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BRT in metro tunnels
A special issue arises in the use of bus vehicles in metro structures. Since the areas where the demand for an exclusive bus right-of-way is apt to be in dense downtown areas where an above-ground structure may be unacceptable on historic, logistic, or environmental grounds, use of BRT in fully underground tunnels may not be avoidable.
Since buses are almost universally operated by internal combustion engines, bus metros raise ventilation issues similar to those of tunnels. In the case of tunnels, powerful fans typically exchange air through ventilation structures on the surface, but are usually placed in a location as remote as possible from occupied areas to minimize the effects of noise and concentrated pollution.
A straightforward way to deal with this is to use electrical propulsion in tunnels and, in fact, Seattle in its Metro Bus Tunnel and Boston in Phase II of its Silver Line are using this method in their respective BRTs. In the case of Seattle, dual-mode (electric/diesel electric) buses manufactured by Breda were used until 2004, with the center axle driven by electric motors obtaining power from trolley wire in the subway, and with the rear axle driven by a conventional diesel powertrain on freeways and streets. Boston is using a similar approach, after initially using electric trolleybuses to provide service pending delivery of the dual mode vehicles in 2005. In 2004, Seattle replaced its "Transit Tunnel" fleet with diesel-electric hybrid buses, which operate similarly to hybrid cars outside the tunnel and in a low-noise, low-emissions "hush mode" (in which the diesel engine operates but does not exceed idle speed) when underground.
The necessity for providing electric power in these environments brings the capital and maintenance costs of such routes closer to light rail and raises the question of building light rail instead. In Seattle, the downtown transit tunnel was closed in September 2005 for conversion to a shared hybrid-bus and light-rail facility.
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Comparison with other forms of mass transit
BRT attempts to combine the advantages of a metro system (exclusive right-of-way to improve punctuality and frequency) with the advantages of a bus system (low construction and maintenance costs, does not require exclusive right-of-way for entire length).
Compared to standard bus service BRT systems with dedicated right-of-way and thus an increased average transport speed can provide more passenger-miles with the same number of rolling stock and personnel. They also offer the prospect of a more fluent ride than a normal bus immersed in stop-and-go traffic.
On a single route basis, the capacity of BRT and normal buses is smaller compared to tram (light rail, tram-train) and rapid transit (metro, mass transit). Typical buses are 12 metres (40 feet) long, articulated buses 18 metres (60 feet). The maximum length for a street-running tram consist (in Germany) is 75 metres (about 250 feet). Metro trains can be 240 m (about 800 feet) long. With similar dwell times in stations the capacity scales with the length.
However, many BRT systems such as the OC Transpo Transitway, Ottawa and South-East Busway, Brisbane are based on multiple bus routes sharing a common dedicated busway to bypass congestion, especially to/from a central business district. In this form, the BRT system passenger capacity is limited by vehicle capacity times vehicle headway of the busway. As buses can operate at headways as low as 10 seconds between vehicles (compared to at least one minute headways for rail vehicles), actual busway capacity can reach passenger rail capacities. At the high end, the Lincoln Tunnel XBL bus lane carries 62,000 commuters in the 4 hour morning peak, more than any Light Rail Line.
The typical diesel engine on the bus causes noticeable levels or air pollution, noise and vibrations. Through developing buses as hybrid vehicles and the use of new forms of trolleybus BRT designers hope to increase ride quality and decrease pollution. As the energy use for acceleration is proportional to the vehicle mass, electric traction allows lighter vehicles, faster acceleration and energy that can be fed back into batteries or the grid when the vehicle through regenerative brakes.
In contrast to BRT, both light rail and rapid transit require the placement of rails for the whole line. The tram usually avoids the high additional costs for the engineering structures like tunnels that need to be built for metros. Rail tends to provide a smoother ride and is known to attract significantly higher passenger numbers than road-based systems. An advantage of BRT, however, is that its maintenance facilities can be located anywhere, whereas for rail there must be a facility for each separate line.
Many BRT designers have used the need to construct power conduit systems as an argument against light rail, but a new proposal, known as ultra light rail, would have trams carry their own power, much like a bus, at a significant energy savings due to lack of rolling resistance.
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Controversies
Opponents of bus rapid transit initiatives argue that BRT is not an effective replacement for light rail or subway services. They argue that in order for BRT to have greatest effect, it must have its own right-of-way requiring space and often construction costs. In many cases, BRT does not, and shares the road with cars and other local buses. Buses run on an ordinary road surface, hence it is more difficult for BRT to claim exclusive street use. As a result, BRT operating in mixed traffic is subject to the same congestion, delays, and jarring and swaying rides as do ordinary city buses. Furthermore, signal priority systems, which are often the sole factor differentiating BRT from regular limited-stop bus service (most notably in Los Angeles' extensive "Rapid" system), might cause severe disruptions to traffic flow on major cross streets. Opponents argued that this merely redistributes, rather than reduces, the traffic congestion problems that BRT systems are designed to alleviate. On the other hand, many light rail systems also utilize signal priority system and railroad-style crossing gates to speed up service as well, and in the same time both BRT and light rail get more persons across a road junction than car traffic.
It should be noted that much of the controversy arises from the wide range of definitions of BRT. Many agencies make a clear distinction between a pure BRT, which is in exclusive lanes, and a more compromised form in mixed traffic. For example, the Los Angeles Orange Line runs entirely in an exclusive lane and therefore achieves speed and reliability comparable to rail. Because it is functionally equivalent to rail, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority presents this line as part of its rail transit system, distinct from its "Rapid" lines, which run in mixed traffic.
A study * of the 98 B-Line BRT in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada conducted by TransLink, Transport Canada and the IBI Group confirmed many benefits of that BRT system including increased ridership, reduced vehicle emissions, improved reliability, improved customer satisfaction. Analysis of the transit supportive signal timing and the transit signal priority system that supports the service confirmed a slight improvement in travel times and reliability for all vehicles in the corridor with negligible impact to traffic crossing the corridor. Having exceeded the capacity that can be handled efficiently on buses, the 98 B-Line will be replaced by a rail transit project, the Canada Line, in 2009.
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Development
Before it even had the name, bus rapid transit first got major backing in the United States with the rise of federal funding for urban mass transportation during the 1960s. The first exclusive busway in the United States was the El Monte Busway, an exclusive bus lane between El Monte and Los Angeles, California. It opened in 1973. Today, American BRT initiatives in receive a great deal of support from the Federal Transit Administration. Planned BRT lines are now eligible to be included in the FTA's New Starts program, which was formerly reserved only for rail projects.
That notwithstanding, the FTA, in announcing its New Starts for 2005, has rated the New Britain-Hartford Busway (Connecticut) "Recommended" but Phase III of the MBTA's Silver Line BRT project (referenced below) "Not Recommended" based on "MBTA's unreasonable operating cost
assumptions." This implies that BRT will be subject to the same scrutiny as rail projects, though (also as with rail projects) the FTA will work with the localities to see if projects can be brought into compliance with requirements.
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Perception
BRT suffers from the serious image problem of buses. Quite often buses of any kind are far less attractive to "choice" riders; i.e., riders who could take transit or drive automobiles but prefer transit for certain trips because of perceived amenities of speed, convenience and/or comfort often found in light rail and subway systems. Bus systems suffer not only from poorer speed and ride quality, but from the perception of buses as a social accommodation — a means of transportation used by those who have no other choice, called "transit dependent."
In the view of some, advocacy for buses among the lower classes contributes to the socioeconomic unattractiveness of BRT. For example, in California, a 1996 lawsuit by the Los Angeles-based Bus Riders Union (site), and litigation initated in 2005 by related groups in the Bay Area, have sought to force transit agencies to shift funds from rail and BRT construction to mixed-traffic bus projects.
While many BRT systems utilize state-of-the-art buses that differ substantially from traditional buses, light rail systems are perceived of still having a higher travel quality. Some put it bluntly as "a bus is still a bus". Routes that have been converted from BRT to light rail have often seen very large ridership gains.
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Implementation in South America
Curitiba's pioneering BRT system (which influenced the construction of the Metro Orange Line BRT in Los Angeles) has seen ridership fall since the mid-1990s as its city's middle class has burgeoned, with cars more readily available resulting in increases in traffic congestion. Following Curitiba's steps, Bogota (Colombia) has opted for a BRT solution as well - TransMilenio. Currently transporting close to 1,000,000 passengers per day, TM is the BRT System in the world with the highest ridership and posterchild project for other cities seeking to implement BRT. São Paulo, mindful of how traffic has choked commerce in the city, has begun expansion of its subway system to complement bus services. Mexico City has also begun a BRT network branded Metrobus, currently operating only in one corridor along Avenida Insurgentes.
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Implementation in Europe
Although Brazil was the first country to have a busway in a large city, the town of Runcorn, planned in the 1950s and built in the 1960s, can claim the invention of this ultra-modern transportation system. The Runcorn system has an elevated section that penetrates into a pedestrianised shopping area. The width of the elevated section is just 6.0 metres, around 2 m less than a guided busway or LRT.
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/tcrp/tcrp90v1_cs/Runcorn.pdf
Even narrower is the High Level Bridge in Newcastle upon Tyne in England, which is just 5.5 m wide and has a two-way flow of double decker buses. The clearance is so tight that wing mirrors can often be found lying in the gutter.
The town of Liege in Belgium also has a busway, which was featured on a video made by the UK Transport Research Lab. *
There is a large number of public transport systems in European towns that fulfill several of the BRT criteria given above, but they are rarely designated as BRT. Bus lanes and exclusive use of key city-centre streets is commonplace, and bus priority on approach to traffic lights is quite frequent. All-door boarding is standard during daytime, ticket machines can often be found at bus stops and sometimes in the buses, ticket booklets can be pre-purchased with the passenger validating the individual ticket at time of boarding, and the use of travel passes is actively encouraged. Sometimes there are spot-checks only, particularly in the rush-hour.
Dedicated engineering structures for bus-only use are less frequent. If capacity demand is high enough to warrant these, there usually is also a case for the construction of a tram or light rail line, and so bus-only systems are more frequently found in small to medium-sized towns.
Examples of bus-only infrastructure in the UK can be found in Crawley (Crawley Fastway), Leeds, Bradford, Ipswich and Edinburgh, with a larger-scale system planned in Cambridgeshire to replace the disused Cambridge to St Ives, Cambridgeshire railway. In each of these cases the system is based around the concept of the guided bus.
In larger towns and cities it is common for a right of way exclusive to public transport to be used by both tram and bus.
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Implementation in Australia
Most of the major cities in Australia have some sort of BRT in place, albiet either short or to service a particular road corridor where it is not practical to build a freeway, tunnel or motorway. The city of Brisbane, Queensland in particular has placed a emphasis on heavy investment in public transport infrastructure of late, specifically the creation of a dedicated system of grade-separated busways, stretching across heavily used inner-city and suburban corridors. By 2012 it is expected that all 5 planned busways will be completed, linked through an underground hub in the CBD.
Generally, investment in BRTs is covered by state government transport agencies, rather than by corporations, since most major public transport services in the country are owned and operated by the same departments. Due to remarkably efficient state transport departments working with established private engineering and business firms, larger projects are generally planned and completed quickly with the full co-operation and support of the public. Rising fuel costs and congested roads have provided ample numbers of patrons who welcome ways to avoid peak hour traffic.
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BRT systems in North America
The Table of Bus Rapid Transit Systems in North America holds more comprehensive information.
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Canada
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Mexico
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United States
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BRT systems in South America
Quito, Ecuador: Unidad Operadora del Sistema Trolebús (trolleybus; currently there are plans to convert the system to a light rail system)
Lima, Peru has an informal busway in the middle of the Paseo de la República expressway, however liberalization of routes in the 1990s brought several routes operating on it at the same time.
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BRT systems in Asia
Beijing, China: BRT on the Nan Zhongzhouxian (South Central Axis Line) launched at the end of December 2004
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BRT systems in Australasia/Oceania
Perth, Australia: Kwinana Freeway bus lanes (under conversion to rail), Causeway (East Perth-Victoria Park), Beaufort Street Inglewood.
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BRT systems in Europe
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See also
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Bus Stop
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A bus stop is a designated place where a public transport bus stops for the purpose of allowing passengers to board or leave the bus. The simplest kind can be just a sign saying "bus stop", or it can be a post with special colouring or other marks identifying it as a bus stop; however, line numbers and/or destinations are often indicated. The times the bus departs may be given, or the whole timetable, in what is known as a Guide-A-Ride box. A map of the bus lines and tariff information may be provided. Electronic signs may be present to tell real-time when the next bus will come, regardless of schedules; NextBus is one such system. An innovation in London is the addition of automatic terminals from which to buy tickets; these save time when boarding.
There may be a shelter, a bench, lighting and a garbage receptacle. These components have the general term street furniture.
There are two main kinds of stops:
Scheduled stop: The bus arrives at the stop at a set time, at which point it allows some or all passengers to disembark and lets those waiting at the stop board. It departs at another set time later.
Request or flag stop: The bus does not come to a halt unless it is signalled to do so. Passengers may signal either by pressing a button or pulling a cord, or by verbally alerting the driver. A person waiting at the stop may be required to flag down the bus (no sign may be present), or his/her presence may be sufficient.
Some bus stops have a button which controls a traffic signal for the bus at some distance before the stop. A "demand stop" is a variant of a request stop in which a bus passenger tells the driver to leave them off at a specific bus stop, otherwise the bus will not travel to the bus stop. People are not picked up at a "demand stop", only let off the bus.
A location with a large number of bus stops is called a bus station, bus interchange, bus depot, or transportation center; in the case of an end destination it may be called a terminal station. It also may house one or more stations for other forms of mass transit, such as a train station. It may have a waiting room instead of just shelters. (In the UK a bus stop is a single place where one or more buses stop; a bus station is a building which buses stop at, commonly facilities for drivers and passengers, a ticket office, refreshment outlets and a waiting room will be provided; and a bus depot is a storage area and garage for buses, used when the buses are not in operation. A location containing more than one form of transport is more commonly referred to as an interchange in the UK.) A bus depot may also be a place where buses are stored and maintained.
Platforms may be assigned to fixed bus lines, or variable in combination with a dynamic passenger information system *. The latter requires fewer platforms, but does not supply the passenger the comfort of knowing the platform well in advance and waiting there.
In bus rapid transit systems, bus stops may be more elaborate. They may have enclosed areas to allow the collection of fares prior to the arrival of the bus. This allows for rapid boarding of the bus using all doors on the bus instead of queueing through the front doors and paying fares. The most famous such system is in Curitiba, Brazil.
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Bus stop placement
Historically bus stops have been placed in the roadway. In cases where on street parking is allowed, having a bus stopped in the lane closest to the curb usually does not pose a problem. In cases where on street parking is not allowed, the stopped bus closes a travel lane to all traffic. To prevent this, a bus turnout is sometimes used to allow the bus to stop without blocking a traffic lane.
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Bus stop location
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Bus stops are typically located to provide a balance of bus passenger convenience and vehicle operating efficiency. Having too many bus stops along a bus line results in slow and unreliable service, whereas too few bus stops means that many passengers will have to walk a long way to get to their bus.
A number of research efforts have concluded that the optimal bus stop spacing for most transit routes is somewhere between 1000-2000 feet (300-600m). Many transit agencies have developed guidelines for preferred bus stop spacing. In Seattle, Washington, King County Metro’s guidelines call for an ideal stop spacing of 4-6 stops per mile in an urban environment, to achieve the proper balance of service coverage and vehicle performance. TriMet, in Portland, Oregon, uses bus stop spacing guidelines of every 3 blocks or 780' (240m) in dense areas, and every 4 blocks or 1000' in medium to low density areas. The Public Transport Council in Singapore uses a guideline of 400m - 350m (1300ft - 1150ft) spacing between bus stops. The Milwaukee (Wisconsin) County Transit System (MCTS) has bus stops every two (2) blocks. In Pittsburgh, there are parts of the city in which there is a stop every block.
In most U.S. Cities, however, the typical bus stop spacing is between 650 and 900 feet (200-275 m), well below the optimal. Often the existing pattern of stops is the result of a reactive process spanning many decades. New bus stops are commonly installed in response to citizen requests or complaints in a reactive manner without consideration of the corridor-level context. Then, as people become accustomed to established bus stop locations, removal of existing bus stops can be a painful process, even if the original purpose for a bus stop is no longer an issue. After several decades of reactive process without corridor-level vision, an over-saturation of bus stops can result.
Transit agencies are increasingly looking at bus stop consolidation as a way to improve service cheaply and easily. Bus stop consolidation is the process of evaluating the bus stop pattern along an established bus route and developing a new pattern for optimal bus stop placement. Bus stop consolidation involves evaluating each bus stop and identifying critical stops, stops that could be removed or combined, and stops that could be moved for better service. The goal of bus stop consolidation is to create a good balance of service accessibility, transit vehicle performance/schedule reliability, and investment in public facilities. Bus stop consolidation has been proven to improve operating efficiency and ridership on bus routes.
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Rapid Transit
A rapid transit, underground, subway, tube, elevated, or metro(politan) system is a railway system, usually in an urban area, with a high capacity and frequency of service, and grade separation from other traffic.
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Characteristics and nomenclature
See also Passenger rail terminology.
There is no one term that all English speakers use for rapid transit or metro systems. This is a reflection on national and regional usage and differing definitions of what characteristics are essential for these systems.
A common definition would be:
an urban, electric mass transit railway system;
totally independent from other traffic;
with high service frequency.
Those who prefer the terms "subway" (American) or "underground" (British) would additionally specify that the tracks and stations are:
located below street level, in at least the most important places,
so that the streetscape is unaltered by the line's presence. In some cities the word "subway" applies to the entire system, in others only to those parts that are actually underground.
Those who prefer the terms "rapid transit" or "metro" tend to view this as a less important characteristic and include systems that are entirely elevated or at ground level (at grade).
Rapid transit systems that are above street level may be called "elevated" systems in the US, often shortened to el (or sometimes L, as in Chicago 'L'). In the UK, elevated systems are generally classified as light railways such as the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) in east London - although not all British light railways are elevated.
For a more comprehensive listing showing names of this kind of system in cities around the world, see the list of rapid transit systems.
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Extent
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In larger metropolitan areas the underground system may extend only to the limits of the central city, or to its inner ring of suburbs, with trains making relatively frequent station stops. The outer suburbs may then be reached by a separate commuter, suburban or regional rail network, where more widely spaced stations allow a higher speed. These trains are often more expensive, less frequent, and, in some cities, operate only during rush hours periods. Sometimes, for political reasons, commuter lines are operated by a separate authority that tends not to co-operate with the city's transit authority (except in Japan, where the commuter routes are frequent in suburbs and form the backbone of the networks).
Many of these regional railways were first built to operate in one direction from a city centre terminus, but some have been extended across the city centre, sometimes running in tunnels. By making multiple stops in the city, they can offer suburban passengers a choice of stations and also provide useful transportation within the city. A notable example is the Paris RER system, where (in co-operation with the city's transit authority) several pairs of existing suburban lines running in opposite directions from the city have been extended in tunnel to join up and form new through routes across the city. They are provided with frequent service and, within the city, the same fares as the Métro are charged, providing an integrated network. In Tokyo and Osaka, Japan private companies operate the world's most extensive suburban railways, each with their own fare system that integrates with the entire system. In German-speaking countries, the Paris style system is called an S-Bahn. In Italian-speaking countries such a system is called Linea S or Treno Suburbano, where as in Spain it is referred to as Cercanías.
In some cases, such as the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and Washington Metrorail systems, the rapid transit system runs to the suburbs and effectively functions as a regional rail service as well. (Note, however, that the Washington, DC, area has two regional rail services as well: VRE and MARC, and the San Francisco area has three: Caltrain, ACE and the soon-to-be-developed SMART.) Where there are separate systems, the rapid transit system is typically a self-contained service with its own dedicated tracks and stations and technologically incompatible with other railways. Suburban rail services, on the other hand, often share tracks and stations with long-distance trains (historically they were usually operated by the same company, which also owned the rails and ran freight, although this has become less common) and are subject to the same standards and regulations. There are exceptions; some London Underground lines share tracks with suburban rail services. In some cases, underground railway lines have been extended by taking over existing regional rail lines, notably parts of the Central and Northern Lines in London. The Athens Metro's Blue Line shares tracks with suburban rail services in order to connect the metro to Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, but does not stop at the suburban rail stations because the platforms of the stations are a lot lower than the train's floor. In Hong Kong and São Paulo, Brazil, metro-like frequent service is provided by electrifying existing railway lines, while continuing to share the tracks with the much less frequent intercity and freight trains. The KCR West Rail in Hong Kong is designed to accommodate intercity and freight traffic in future, whilst at present provides only metro-like service.
Elevated railways were a popular way to build mass transit systems in cities around the turn of the twentieth century, but they have fallen out of favour; and many elevated lines were later demolished, being replaced by subways or buses. Elevated rail saw something of a resurgence in the late twentieth century, with the construction of a number of new lines such as the Docklands Light Railway in London and the Bangkok Skytrain and Vancouver SkyTrain; in the United States a few such lines have been built, including the Atlanta's MARTA, New York's AirTrain JFK and the Las Vegas Monorail, but these are typically seen as more futuristic, and are not representative of the overall trends in U.S. transit development.
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Importance, functions, and station design
The volume of passengers a metro train can carry is often quite high, and a metro system is often viewed as the backbone of a large city's public transportation system. In many cities passengers beginning their journeys on a streetcar/tram, bus, or suburban rail system must finish their journey into the city center on the metro as their first mode of transport will terminate at a metro station to avoid congesting the city center above ground. Budapest is a perfect example where the two more modern metro lines connect with buses and trams and also with two circular streetcar/tram routes (one closer to and one further from the city center) that allow travel between suburbs and also into the centre of the city by changing onto the metro.
In some cities, the urban rail system is so comprehensive and efficient that the majority of city residents use it as their primary means of transport. London, Moscow, New York City, Madrid, Paris, Seoul, Tokyo and Osaka are such examples; these cities have the most extensive and convenient metro systems in the world. In greater Tokyo, by far the world's most extensive rail system for any metropolitan area, the region's 15-line subway network is a mere fraction of the over 75 heavy rail lines, transporting well over 20 million people daily, where the majority of suburban residents in addition to city dwellers do not own automobiles and depend on rail as the primary means of travel. Osaka, Japan is similar to Tokyo's system except about half as big, but still has a ridership exceeding that of New York City. In Europe, London (in 1st place) and Madrid (in the second one) have the biggest metro systems.
Due to a general low population density and a different urban plan, many cities in the United States have very low rates of transit usage. About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in just one city: New York (see Transportation in New York City). Older cities such as Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston, and Philadelphia follow New York, while the rest of the cities in the United States have only partial or poorly-used systems, especially in sunbelt cities such as Phoenix, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Las Vegas or Houston.
In the Western Hemisphere, Mexico City also has a large system. In Canada, only Toronto and Montreal have extensive metro networks serving their urban centers (see Toronto subway and RT and Montreal Metro); Vancouver's SkyTrain also provides high-grade service, but at present acts primarily as a connection between Vancouver and the surrounding area. This will change by 2011, when the second of two new lines will be completed.
Most underground systems are for public transportation, but a few cities have built freight or postal lines. One example was the Post Office Railway, which transported mail underground between sorting offices in London from 1927 until it was abandoned in 2003. Similarly, until the 1970s the London Underground's Circle Line (originally the Metropolitan Railway) transported goods as well as running passenger trains. Another example was the Chicago Tunnel Company, which had a dense grid of tunnels under downtown Chicago.
During the Cold War an important secondary function of some underground systems was to provide shelter in case of a nuclear attack.
Urban rail systems have often been used to showcase economic, social, and technological achievements of a nation, especially in the Soviet Union and other Communist countries. With their marble walls, polished granite floors and splendid mosaics, the metro systems of Moscow and St. Petersburg are widely regarded as some of the most beautiful in the world. Modern metro stations in Russia are usually still built with the same emphasis on appearance. Similarly, the Independent Subway System in New York City was built to compete with the private IRT and BMT systems.
See also Metro station.
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Technology
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Most rapid transit trains are electric multiple units. Power is commonly delivered by a third rail, or in systems without much length in tunnel, by overhead wires. Most run on conventional steel railway tracks, although some use rubber tires. Crew sizes have decreased throughout history, with some modern systems now running completely unstaffed trains. The method of tunnel construction used varies from place to place, depending on the situation. Cut-and-cover tunnels are constructed by digging up city streets, which are then rebuilt over the tunnel. Alternatively, tunnel-boring machines can be used to dig deep-bore tunnels.
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History
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Before any plans were made for transit systems with underground tunnels and stations, several railway operators built tunnels for their trains, usually to reduce the grade of the railway line. Examples include Trevithick's Tunnel from 1804, built for the Penydarren locomotive*.
The London Underground, usually referred to by Londoners simply as "the Underground" or more familiarly "the Tube", began operations on January 10, 1863 on the Metropolitan Railway. The Underground currently serves 274 stations and runs over 253 miles (408 km) of lines. There are also a number of stations and tunnels that are now closed, some of which can be seen from trains.
In Chicago on World's Columbian Exposition 1893 ran the first electrically-driven elevated railway the "Intramural Railway".
A major breakthrough in the development of modern electrically-driven rapid transit occurred when the American inventor Frank J. Sprague successfully tested his system of multiple-unit train control (MUTC) on the Chicago L in 1897. MUTC, which allowed all the motors in an entire train to be dependably controlled from a single point, freed rapid transit systems from dependence on locomotive-hauled coaches.
The first underground railway in continental Europe was the Tünel, an underground 573-meter funicular between the quarters of Beyoğlu and Galata in the European part of Istanbul, completed in 1875 by French engineers on behalf of the Ottoman Empire. It rarely figures as continental Europe's first metro, though, partly because of its limited length, partly because the cars were pulled by horses until the line was converted to electric operation in 1910. After the Tünel, the first underground railway to be completed in continental Europe was opened in Budapest in 1896, after only two years of construction. It stretches from Vörösmarty tér (the city centre) to City Park and the local zoo, over a total length of 3.7 km (2.3 mi). It is now part of the Budapest Metro and remains largely in its original state, with the original cars modernised and the stations restored in keeping with their original design, and with the route the same except for a very short extension north to Mexikói út to connect with the city's tram network. It lays claim to a second title, that is the first electric underground railway with overhead cables, like the Newcastle system, rather than the more common third rail in the world. The 10.4 km (6.5 mi) Glasgow Subway in Scotland opened the same year and used cable haulage until it was electrified in 1935.
The first line of the Paris Metro opened in 1900. Its full name was the Chemin de Fer Métropolitain, a direct translation into French of London's Metropolitan Railway. The name was shortened to métro, and many other languages have since borrowed this word. The Berlin U-Bahn (for underground railway) opened in 1902; because large sections of the line were elevated, it was also called Hochbahn (high railway) until the 1920s.
Boston has the oldest subway tunnel in the United States that is still in use, part of the Green Line downtown, dating from 1897. The original construction was a short four-track tunnel downtown, with only two stations, built to take light rail cars from outlying areas off the streets. Later subways in Boston carried full-size trains; the Green Line still operates with light rail equipment. In 1901, heavy rail trains began to use the tunnel as part of the original configuration of the Main Line Elevated, the first elevated railway in Boston.
The New York City Subway, which has become the world's largest (by some measures), did not open its first section until 1904, but this was a fully independent four-track line, stretching 9 miles (14.5 km)* from City Hall to 145th Street. Extensions were soon built, reaching the Bronx and Brooklyn; this is now part of the system. Two major subway systems, operated by the and the IND were constructed later, and many pre-existing elevated railway lines were incorporated into the and systems. The Hudson and Manhattan Railroad, which also opened a subway tunnel in Manhattan in 1908 and connected with New Jersey, remained a separate railroad company, and later came under the control of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH). New York City subway trains now run on right-of-way first used in 1863, and converted R44 subway cars run on the 1860 Staten Island Railway.
In Italy the first line was built for the 1906 World Exhibition Fair in Milan. It was an elevated light rail that linked the two main area of the fair. The line was dismantled eight years later.
In 1907, the first line in Philadelphia, now part of the Market-Frankford Line, began running on both elevated and underground structures.
The oldest subway in the Southern Hemisphere opened in 1913 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which is also the oldest one in Latin America and the Spanish-speaking world. * The system is now known as El Subte.
In Madrid the metro opened on October 17, 1919 under the direction of the Compañía de Metro Alfonso XIII. Metro stations served as air raid shelters during the Spanish Civil War.
Asia's oldest commuter heavy rail lines are in Japan, with private companies Meitetsu railways (Nagoya) opening in 1895, and Tokyo's Keihin Kyūkō in 1896, both still serving dense urbanized areas. Asia's first cities to have subway lines are Tokyo in 1927 and Osaka in 1933. Japan's rail system is quite different from others in that the vast majority of its rapid transit is above ground, and privately owned and operated, and train stations blur the distinction between vast underground malls and corporate skyscrapers and gigantic high rise department stores. Train stations in Japan, like highways in the US, become the center and backbone of town and create their own skyline, especially in suburbs like Saitama and Fujisawa. Other major Japanese cities also have subway systems, including Yokohama, Nagoya, Sapporo, Kobe, Kyoto, Fukuoka, and Sendai.
In the past 30 years, a number of cities in Korea have also developed modern and
extensive subway systems. The largest, Seoul, has nine lines over approximately 178 miles of track (approximately 287 km). Busan, Daegu, Incheon, Gwangju and Daejeon also have subway systems. China and India are rapidly expanding their urban rail systems as well.
The first underground in the former USSR (in Russian метрополитен metropoliten or метро metro) opened in 1935 in Moscow. The first line — between Sokolniki and Park Kul'tury — was 11.2 km long. And the project of one of the first stations, Krasniye Vorota, was awarded a Grand Prix at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris. The Moscow metro is one of the most elaborately decorated undergrounds of the world, with its stations often being called underground palaces. (As of 2005, the Moscow metro has 278 kilometers of railways and 171 stations.) In Russia and other republics of the former Soviet Union as a whole, subways opened in Saint Petersburg (1955), Kiev (1960), Tbilisi (1965), Baku (1967), Kharkov (1975), Tashkent (1977), Yerevan (1981), Minsk (1984), Nizhniy Novgorod (1985), Novosibirsk (1986), Samara (1987), Yekaterinburg (1991), Dnipropetrovsk (1995), Kazan (2005). In Volgograd and Kryvi Rih in 1980s a "metrotram" opened – it runs underground, along with common city trams.
In 1959, a metro system was inaugurated in Lisbon, called Metropolitano de Lisboa. It was the first underground rail system in the Portuguese-speaking world.
The Toronto Subway opened in 1954. One experimental trainset consisted of the first aluminum subway cars, which reduced weight and therefore operating costs*. With the next car order in 1963, only aluminum was used. The new cars, at 75 feet/23 m, were at the time the longest in the world. The Montreal Metro, was the second subway system in Canada and was inaugurated in 1966 as part of Expo 67 that would be held in Montreal.
In Brazil, the first underground opened in 1974 in São Paulo, and now carries some four million passengers on an average weekday as part of the São Paulo Metro. Part of it consists of converted older railways; some of its stations actually date from the 1880s. Underground lines have been built also in Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Recife, Porto Alegre and Brasília.
Metro de Santiago is the metro system serving Santiago, the capital of the Republic of Chile. It is a network of five lines with a total of 85 stations.
The Washington Metro in Washington, D.C. opened in 1976, as part of changing attitudes towards transportation in the United States, leading to subway systems opening in many cities that had done without.
In 1979, Hong Kong's subway line, the MTR, began operations. It currently has seven lines, including four that run underneath Victoria Harbour. By 1982, the British section of the Kowloon-Canton Railway, now known as KCR East Rail, started to provide metro-like service upon electrification was completed.
1987 saw the Mass Rapid Transit in Singapore open. It was the world's first heavy rail system to feature platform screen doors. The country made news again by having the world's first automated heavy rail system. The network has three lines with another one to be ready by 2010.
The most recently completed fully underground heavy rail metro line in North America is the LACMTA Red Line in Los Angeles, which goes from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, through the mid-Wilshire area, East Hollywood, central Hollywood, and ending 17 miles away in North Hollywood in the San Fernando Valley. Construction was started on this line in 1986 and completed in 2000. In autumn 2005, several politicians including Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa indicated a desire to complete the originally conceived subway route along Wilshire Boulevard to West Los Angeles and Santa Monica.
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Finance
Many early urban railways were constructed by private enterprise, either independently as in London, or under a government franchise as in Paris. Profitable suburban railways in |
