BusTalk

[RailBus63]

The blog The Transport Politic has an interesting post about the reorganization of the bus system in Lyon, France. The operator in this city is rolling out a major overhaul of routes intended to simplify travel on its busiest surface lines and improve customer perception. Route variations and branches are eliminated for major routes – these will have only a single origin and destination regardless of the time of day. These routes will be branded with a ‘C’ similar to how the agency brands Metro routes with an ‘M’ and tram routes with a ‘T’, and will be featured more prominently on system maps and offer increased headways that should encourage greater walk-up use without need to consult a timetable. Circumferential routes are also being beefed up in an effort to provide more direct service between outer points of the otherwise radial system without need for transfers.

This overhaul definitely seems to be well thought-out and should be watched closely by U.S. operators. As noted in the blog, Los Angeles has incorporated some of these practices with its Metro Rapid network, but too often the changes occur in a piecemeal fashion (New York ‘s SBS, Cleveland’s Health Line) or with little real change involved (Boston’s Key Bus initiative) and public perception changes little if at all. Lyon shows that even a successful system can do better and is willing to act boldly, and I believe many of these lessons could be applied in U.S, cities as well.

Thoughts?

Jim