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[quote user="John WR"] What puzzles me (and the article does not clarify) is how the savings are achieved with a BRT system.  In a true rapid transit system you have to acquire a right of way, put down either tracks or a road way and purchase the vehicles.  In a light rail system you can operated multiple units hooked together with one engineer.  With buses each bus must have a driver.  So where is the difference in costs? [/quote] The biggest difference is the capital costs. The estimated per mile cost for Rapid Bus Technology in Austin, which is a growing mid-size city, is roughly $3 million per mile. The lastest estimate for the light rail line from Bergstrom International Airport to the University of Texas via downtown is approximately $48 million per mile.  Whether the operating costs of the light rail can recapture the capital costs is debatable. Upgrading the Austin and Western to accomodate the Red Line commuter line cost approximately $145 million, although some of it, thanks to some doggy accounting, was allocated to freight operations. On top of the capital outlays Capital Metro incurs approximately $9 million a year in operating expenses for the Red Line. Two years ago, when I ran the numbers, the average rider on the Red Line was getting a daily subsidy of nearly $70 per day or $35 per trip. The average daily ridership is approximately 800 passengers or 1,600 trips per day for a metro population base of approximately 1.8 million.   For distances between 20 and 25 miles RBT can compete with light rail. Beyond 25 miles light rail and heavy rail win hands down. RBT is a technological solution that is an optimum fit for some environments, albeit, not all environments.   RBT will include timed stations similar to those found along a light rail line, although they will be spaced closer together. Passengers will enter and exit the bus through front and rear doors. The stations will have displays telling passengers when the next bus will arrive. The drivers will have limited control over traffic lights, thereby enabling them to maintain a quicker schedule than is the case with regular buses.   Apparently the DOT has been shocked at the cost of light rail. As mentioned earlier, the DART light rail system has cost more than $3.5 billion and requires a subsidy of $4.23 per passenger trip. The subsidy for the Trinity Railway Express is $5.54 per passenger trip. The subsidy for regular bus passengers is $5.12 per passenger trip, which is driven in part by the fact that the buses serve low density areas for political reasons, i.e. crosstown runs in Plano attract very few day time passengers, but must be run because of local politics.  Given the capital costs, DOT apparently has been pushing RBT as a solution for some environments. As noted in another posting, San Antonio is moving forward with RBT, with a possible eye to converting it to light rail 20 years down the road.  That is an eternity given the financial picture of the United States and most states and cities.  Whether it comes about remains to be seen. I probably will be dead in 20 years, so I don't expect to validate the prediction.
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