Sustainable Transport: BRT experiences from Mexico and India

Increasing population and urbanization is creating a steadily increasing demand for transportation in the cities of many developing countries, coinciding with rapid economic growth leading to increasing demand for higher standards of living and faster and more efficient modes of transportation. The decisions made today regarding transport infrastructure will affect long-term travel behavior, with corresponding impacts on the economy, society, and the environment, the last impact being one of the most important in times of steadily rising environmental concern. The successful experiences of Curitiba in Brazil and Bogotá in Colombia have served as a source of inspiration for other cities in Latin America and elsewhere. In 1973 Curitiba became the first city in the world to introduce an integrated land use and transport infrastructure approach with an integrated transport network based on bus rapid transit (BRT). The BRT systems of Curitiba and Bogotá have subsequently been adopted all over the world with some variations. Implementation of two recent BRTs, Mexico City and Ahmedabad in India, are examined in this paper.