Bus Rapid System (BRS), Rio de Janeiro

1,125,000 minutes and 1 life saved...
....on the first operational Monday of Rio's first bus priority corridor*.


Brazil is preparing for the World Cup and Olympic Games by implementing improvements to transport in Rio de Janeiro. This video shows a time lapse view of the first rapid bus corridor to be implemented in Rio. On 19th February 2011, two lanes of Rua Nossa Senhora de Copacabana (a four lane one-way road) commenced operation as a bus rapid corridor.  The project is called 'BRS Copacabana' where BRS stands for 'bus rapid system'. This is the first of 22 planned corridors in Rio to receive BRS treatment. The two right lanes of this four lane road are now dedicated to public transport buses, school buses, emergency vehicles and turning vehicles. The remaining two lanes are used by taxis, private vehicles and bicycles.

Rio Bus Rapid System (BRS) on Vimeo. Alternatively on Youtube here.

Buses - effective urban transportation or disorder and terror?

Last year when I was here in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I marvelled at the disorder of the bus system.  Despite the almost complete reliance of this city of 11million people on buses there was effectively:

• no bus priority
• over competition between companies
• lack of stop information/ confusion over which buses stopped where
• a culture of extreme driving (on behalf of the buses and the cars and taxis they were racing) and
• a passenger culture that promoted buses stopping whenever and wherever someone wanted to get on or off. 

Riding a bus her can be characterised by terror as buses lurch from stop to stop (and non stops too) and speed around corners. Due to the number of stops and tight timetables drivers accelerate and brake rapidly. Despite bouts of extreme speed, the quantity of stops made for an overall slow, dangerous and uncomfortable ride from A to B. An extensive road network including tunnels does little to ease the congestion of cars, buses and taxis of this large and busy city.

Transport alternatives to buses in Rio

Rio does have other transportation systems (other than buses) which serve different geographic regions.  The far northern suburbs (where most people actually live) has a(n apparently) horribly underfunded and badly maintained rail system.  The inner northern zone and the rich southern zone (centro, Botafogo, Flamengo, Copacabana and Ipanema) has a metro line with two spurs.  Most intercity travel is by bus as there are no intercity rail services and air travel is too expensive for most.

The south zone, what most foreigners know of as Rio, has an abundance of taxis thanks to:

• low labor and oil costs (nationalised oil resources)
• the wealth (and old age) of the residents here
• the fact that very little car parking is provided in the apartment buildings which were built before the car was king.

In other noivou riche areas (remember I'm learning Portuguese not French!) such as Barra da Tijuca (aka 'Miami') everyone has extremely expensive condominiums and owns two cars! I read in the paper just last week that car ownership in Brazil has doubled in the last 5 years despite significant taxes applied to vehicle purchase and ownership. Car ownership is now something like 1 per 7 people.

The exciting part!!

On Saturday 19 February the first of 22 bus rapid corridors became operational just a few blocks back from the famous Copacabana beach.  The corridor is called 'BRS Copacabana' and is being marketed with the tagline 'vai ser bacana' => 'it's going to be cool'.  This is part of an overall strategy to vastly improve transport in Rio prior to hosting both the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games.

Copacabana - a linear grid

The suburb of Copacabana behind the famous beach, was built many years ago in a a linear northeast-southwest (let's say north-south) grid system using only one-way streets (much like Buenos Aires for those who've been there). There is a major couplet along the beach front and then another major couplet several blocks inland and a few more minor streets all running parallel to the beach. Most streets perpendicular to the beach don't carry significant traffic as they don't connect through the national park behind Copacabana. The city's underground metro runs north-south too under the same alignment towards and beyond centro (which is north of Copacabana beach). 

The major traffic function through Copacabana is divided between Avenida Atlantica (a 6 lane beach front road divided by a wide island) and the one-way inland couplet of Rua Nossa Senhora de Copacabana (north) and Rua Barata Ribeiro (south) - each four lanes and one-way.


Lanes... what are they and what are they used for here??

Until now, Rua Nossa Senhora de Copacabana and Rua Barata Ribeiro were painted with four general traffic lanes with bus stops on the right hand side of the street (they drive on the right). The roads across the country are generally one-way and used with little regard to the lane marking! As such these roads allowed more or less two general lanes with some leftover space for a raft of activities including:

• weaving (to avoid ever-present and badly installed sewer/service caps and other obstacles, or just because drivers felt like it)
• stopping (by cars and taxis on either left or right side of the street)
• buses picking up/ dropping off passengers
• parking (generally the left side of the street)
• servicing (construction, manual workers, goods, post, money trucks on either side of street)
• cycling and other wheeled devices (corn carts, adapted cargo bikes etc).

Buses were vaguely prohibited from using either of the two "left" lanes and I hear could be fined if they did, however taxis, cars, bikes, pedestrians were all allowed to use any lane including the bus lane without fear of penalty.

Change

All that has changed! And it is happening right now... and I'm excited to be here watching it unfold!!

The status quo on Rua Nossa Senhora de Copacabana has now changed significantly and Rua Barata Ribeiro is currently undergoing road works due to change in the next 2 weeks or so.

Rua Nossa Senhora de Copacabana has been resurfaced and there are now four clearly painted lanes on the road. The two right lanes are separated by raised bumps coming in to intersections and with blue paint and are called something equivalent to 'transit express'. The two left lanes are now for general traffic (taxis, stopping, bicycles, cars etc).

Transit express lanes

The two right lanes of the road are dedicated to only:

• certain public transport bus routes
• school buses/ minivans and
• emergency vehicles.

Private vehicles are allowed to use these lanes for less than one block if entering/exiting a property or turning right at an intersection. There are cameras at each intersection for enforcement meaning if you are in a car in the 'transit express' and you don't turn at THAT intersection, you're immediately fined.

Bus stops and service patterns

Most existing bus stops have been labelled as either BRS1, BRS2 and BRS3 although some stops have been rationalised.

Routes servicing this corridor have been reduced by 20% and strictly allocated BRS1, BRS2 or BRS3 stops ONLY. Each bus now has a sticker in the front window indicating which series of stops it utilises. Previously all buses for all routes more or less stopped at all stops and/or wherever anyone else wanted them to.  Buses now only stop at their allocated stops and not in between.

Visualizar Pontos BRS em Copacabana em um mapa maior

Bitumen, paint, signs and maps | Culture and education

The 'prefeitura' (ie council) has had staff and traffic controllers out in force over the last couple of days educating drivers (mostly taxi drivers) and bus passengers about the new status quo. The biggest change here other than the actual decision to allocate road space is to behaviours, rather than the infrastructure itself. In fact apart from the general resurfacing, the only infrastructure change so far has been the installation of enforcement cameras, road markings, raised lane dividers and new signage (for both road users and at bus stops).

From BRS Copa

From BRS Copa

From BRS Copa

From BRS Copa

Such overt and regulated allocation of road space is a big change for the culture here and a brave but necessary one.  Bus journeys down this street are already 40% faster, and despite the reduction in buses by 20% overall capacity has increased substantially, not to mention reliability and useability! I only hope over time that bus stops are improved and that all planned corridors are implemented.

Hiccups and possible problems

This post is already incredibly long - I'll post another day!

* Savings calculations

• I saw one ambulance and two firetrucks using the BRS in just over one hour. 2mins can make a difference to a life so I think it's fair to say I witnessed the system save at least one life.
• I counted on average one bus every 12 seconds off-peak (although peak usage here is quite spread). Assuming this average operational coverage for 15hrs/day (6am - 9pm) with 300 buses/hr and each bus conservatively only 1/3 full (25 pax) and saving 10 minutes along the length of street BRS has been implemented on, then each day BRS is operational at least 1,125,000mins or 18,750hrs or 781days are saved for cariocas!

More information

More information is available at the BRS website at http://www.fetranspor.com.br/brs/
The following images are the most up to date available from Rio de Janeiro Prefeitura.
To find other cameras visit the Rio transit webpage and select the region and camera.