Guided bus
From Freepedia
Guided buses are buses steered for part or all of their route by some form of external trackway. This trackway, which often parallels existing roads, excludes all other forms of traffic, permitting the maintenance of reliable schedules on heavily used corridors even during rush hours.
Small guide wheels are attached to the regular wheels of the bus, and these engage vertical kerbs on either side of the trackway. The bus is steered in the normal way away from the guideway. The start of the guideway is funnelled from a wide track to the normal width. The trackway allows for high speed operation on a narrow guideway.
Only a few examples currently exist, but more are proposed in various countries. The most extensive guided busway in the world is the Adelaide O-Bahn system in South Australia, which has been operating since the mid 1980's. The Adelaide O-Bahn has been reasonably successful.
A number of guided busways currently operate in the United Kingdom. They are at:
- Ipswich (Kesgrave) - opened in 1995
- Leeds (Scott Hall Road) - opened in 1995
- Leeds (A64 York Road and A63 Selby Road) - opened in 2001
- Bradford (A641 Manchester Road) - opened in October 2001.
- Crawley (Southgate Avenue) - opened in August 2003.
- Crawley (London Road) - opened in December 2004.
- Edinburgh (Fastlink - Stenhouse to Broomhouse) - opened in December 2004.
Plans for a guided busway in Cambridgeshire have met with local opposition, with campaigns such as CAST.IRON advocating the re-opening of the Cambridge to St Ives railway line.
In Mannheim, Germany, a guided busway is sharing the tram alignment for a few hundred meters which allows the buses to avoid a rather congested stretch of road in a location where there is no space at all for an extra traffic lane.
In France, Nancy and Caen run 'tramways on tyres', in actual fact guided busways based on Bombardier Transportation's Guided Light Transit technology.
