The Bus Rapid Transit

System of Curitiba

1974

AN URBAN AND TERRITORIAL

The urban planning in Curitiba, Brazil, and in particular its transport system, it represents how doing a lot with a little. When 1 plus 1 does not simply do 2, but 3, 4, etc. The solutions adopted by urban planners of Curitiba indicate a method, a criterion. In fact, the example of Curitiba is not automatically replicable anywhere, in any metropolis.  

The key features of the Curitiba's Overground Metro,

a "low cost" metro system:

• 3 types of lines: extra-urban lines of articulated buses with 3 segments, and with few stops; urban lines for the two segment buses; local lines for the standard buses.
• Preferential lanes only for all public buses in the main streets. 
• Raised platforms for the bus stop. In this way the bus does not waste time with the ascent and descent of passengers. In addition, the passenger validates the ticket entering into the bus-stop platform space. In other words each bus stop is a mini-station of an overground metro.

• Compared to costs of an underground subway, this "overground metro" is low cost.  Alternatively  you can use trams rather than buses.
• Benefits: silence, quiet, no noise from vehicular traffic; no smog, no fine particle pollution. More space for our feet, more physical and mental health.
• Negative effects: zero. No pollution in the main streets as it happens in the ordinary metropolis, full of fine powders present in suspension in the air.

Curitiba Public Transport maps. Source: Wikipedia, "Rede Integrada de Transporte" in Curitiba, Brazil. Transit type: Bus Rapid Transit. Number of special lines: 6. Number of terminal station: 21. Daily ridership: 2,300,000 per day. Began operation: 1974.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Jonas Rabinovitch and Josef Leitman:  "Urban Planning in Curitiba: A Brazilian city challenges conventional wisdom and relies on low technology to improve the quality of urban life", Scientific American Magazine, New York City, NY - U.S.A., March 1996.

From Wikipedia, etc.:

• Bus rapid transit; 
• Rede Integrada de Transporte (Curitiba, Brazil, 1974); URBS-RIT;
• Transitway (Ottawa, Canada, 1983); 
• TransJakarta (Jakarta, Indonesia, 2004),
• List of bus rapid transit systems;
• List of bus rapid transit systems in the Americas.