If We're Serious About Making Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) a Thing in North America, Then We Need to Make the Buses Sexy
BRT can be built fast, but speed alone won’t make people ride it. To win over drivers and skeptics, we need buses that turn heads and feel premium.
I’m a big fan of Hayden Clarkin (aka The Transit Guy). In fact, a lot of folk following this page got here through his Substack which is cool. Hayden also recently posted a really compelling and thoughtful case for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) as the quickest, most cost-effective and perhaps most under-appreciated way to quickly expand high-capacity transit in North America.
He’s bang on that BRT has the potential to be built almost overnight (in infrastructure terms), delivering massive improvements in urban mobility at a fraction of the cost of rail. However, there’s something that I think he missed, and acts as a bit of an elephant in the room that politicians, transit operators and advocates need to be more vocal and open about: the bus vehicle itself.
They really are the fat, frumpy, unfashionable and unloved member of the mobility family. All too often they’re ugly, overly utilitarian, dirty, smelly, uncomfortable and unloved sitting in and amidst the traffic. Why would you want to be crawling along on that when you could be in a car?
This is a problem for BRT, because you can create the dedicated right of way, have some nice stops or stations and get the ticketing system set up in a way you would do for a tram or a train … but people still look down on BRT because it’s not a sleek and smooth vehicle on rails that turns up, but a bus.
The Bus Stigma
Buses, especially in North America, carry a psychological weight that rail systems simply don’t. They’re seen as a last resort to provide to those too poor to afford a car ,rather than a way to travel that is so desirable that you would choose to leave your car at home.
While part of this is due to service quality (infrequent schedules, slow routes, lack of dedicated lanes that BRT systems solve for), a significant factor is the bus vehicle itself. The typical North American bus is a rattling, plasticky, bone-shaking experience with hard seats, uninviting interiors and with an ugly livery that gives the overall feel of an underfunded public service, not a premium mobility experience.
Compare that to trains, which even when old, often feel more substantial, smoother and just inherently ‘better’.
This is where BRT proponents, operators and advocates need to think bigger. Building a dedicated lane, placing some nice prominent stations with ticket machines and fare gates then calling it a day isn’t enough. If BRT is to genuinely compete with light rail or metro systems, the bus vehicles themselves need to be desirable. People need to want to ride them.
A lesson from Edinburgh … the vehicle matters
A fascinating case study in transit psychology comes from Edinburgh. The city’s airport was already served by what was arguably Europe’s best airport-to-city bus service (in some cases, award winning). It was fast, frequent and reliable. And yet, when Edinburgh introduced a tram line to the airport despite taking a longer route, taking in some cases more time, and delivered a giant disruption and expenses, public transport ridership grew. Why? Because people have a mental model where trains are seen as premium, permanent and comfortable. The vehicle mattered.
Last year while in Edinburgh with family, they were eager to take the tram back to the airport for their flight, even though we were closer to the bus stop, purely because the ride on the tram looked fun to them. The idea of taking the bus is not one that would ever occur to them. Were it not for the tram, they would have been in a taxi.
We need to apply another level of thinking if we want BRT to be a credible option for cities to invest not just the money in, but also the reputation.
It’s not enough to be fast and frequent, BRT needs to look and feel premium.
What Would a Desirable BRT Look Like?
Here’s a few things to think about:
Aesthetic Design
BRT vehicles need to be sleek, modern and visually appealing. Cities should look to tram and train design, borrowing elements that make those modes feel more substantial. China’s trackless trams, essentially trams without rails, are an example of what’s possible when bus design is challenged. The bus can be longer, feel a bit more like a train, challenge some of the orthodoxies.
The design can move beyond looking like a rectangular box on wheels, and be a bit more retro (art-deco anyone?) or futuristic, maybe with big sunroofs to give an open feel, or exterior lighting that adjusts based on time of day or routing. A new BRT system is an opportunity for a city to present itself in its best light, so the bus vehicle itself should make a statement.
Ride Quality
Suspension matters. North American buses often feel like punishment, and not just because often city streets are in a shoddy state of repair. Compare a Nova Bus to a VanHool and it’s like a Lada up against an Audi.
If we can make luxury coaches smooth and comfortable, we can do the same for city buses. Air suspension, better shock absorption, quieter engines (especially with electric buses) should be the bare minimum.
Interior Experience
We really need to ditch the hard plastic seats and utilitarian design. Yes, it might seem easier to clean, but it also turns away people who then see the thing as designed something to hose off the stench of the homeless.
When you designed for the lowest common denominator, you get the lowest common denominator. Further, if we design transport experiences that are actually nice, then we might look after them better, and it might spur us to show some compassion and support for the homeless, rather than accepting they gravitate to transit and become the problem for the other poor people.
We should have the ambition to design and procure vehicles with quality materials, soft and comfy seating, warm lighting and better temperature control that elevates the experience from ‘public service’ to ‘desirable customer product’. We can be inspired by all sorts of interior tropes here, whether that’s a modern EV, premium airline cabin or coffee shop.
Maybe we don’t need reclining seats for short city trips, but a nice place to sit for 10 minutes, even a comfortable place to lean, a cupholder for the coffee, USB charger, TV screen, Spotify playlist etc. would all make the journey a bit nicer and tempt folks from their cars.
Branding & Perception
Most North American transit systems have very tired brands. Often quite historic in nature, with a personal favourite being the Hamilton Street Railway (HSR) in Hamilton, Ontario that features no rails, just ugly white buses.
Now, if you’re selling a consumer proposition, you will think about the product you’re selling, the price you’re selling it for, the place you sell it in, and you likely want your packaging to represent all of that. A quality product will come nicely boxed, it will have drawn your eye, you may even use it as a bit of a status symbol.
So why don’t we do that with buses that cost quite a lot of money, even if they are a lot cheaper than trains. The absolute king of this in my mind has been Alex Hornby, who made the x43 and the 36 look amazing for Transdev Blazefield.
We need to make the BRT vehicles look amazing, so good that you want to ride on them, with distinct branding that elevates them from the expectations North Americas have today. This isn’t just a pretty paint job, but perhaps a name of the line (like you do with a metro system), tied into the stops on the route, the ticket, the app, the wayfinding. Even better, make this tie into the story and the image the city wants to convey. Give them some personality man!
Boarding & Access
Platform-level boarding should be non-negotiable. Buses shouldn’t feel like a step down (literally and figuratively) from rail. If BRT stations feel like light rail stops, sleek architecture with accessible design, it reinforces the idea that this is high-quality transit. Then we need to integrate those stops with the vehicles themselves, how about platform screen doors that only open when a bus is present, creating a more train-like station feel?
Making BRT Work: Faster, Sexier, More Creative
Hayden is absolutely right that BRT can deliver transit solutions quickly. But speed alone won’t make it work, people need to be drawn to it. If the goal is to shift more people out of cars and into transit, BRT must overcome the deep-seated perception that buses are an inferior choice for poor people that don’t have car. That requires not just better infrastructure but a complete rethinking of what a bus can be.
We need to go beyond the logic of why BRT can work, but lean into the magic of making people want it too. That means a bus that will turn your head like a supercar does, an interior you want to spend time in and an overall experience that competes with sitting in the car, not a slightly inferior train.
To Being Challengers.
This is the stuff. THIS IS THE STUFF.
To being challengers!