Designing the Next Generation of Bus Priority - Transport for Greater Manchester - 19 September 2023
Channel: RTIG
Date: 25/09/2023

Public transport, and buses in particular, are facing challenges at every turn: slow recovery from the covid collapse in passenger numbers, inflation increasing cost base, driver recruitment and retention, and of course traffic congestion.
How can we make the bus more attractive to encourage more people to use it?
One way of making buses more attractive, and encourage former and new passengers onto buses, is ensuring that they provide a competitive and reliable journey time in comparison to other modes – both now and in the longer term.
It is vital therefore, as traffic levels and congestion continues to increase, that journey times do not become slower or less reliable as a consequence. Unlike some of the challenges we face, this is not under the control of bus operators – but traffic managers can make a difference, including through bus priority measures. Bus Back Better (the national bus strategy) has a lot to say about bus priority, and it forms a key element in many Enhanced Partnerships and Bus Service Improvement Plans.
Nearly 20 years ago the first standard approach to providing digital bus priority was published, and over a decade ago an interface between buses and urban traffic control systems was developed. This UTC interface is now well adopted with plenty of experience in its implementation. 
However, in the last few years technology has progressed very rapidly, and there are now bus priority schemes that have been and are being introduced using different approaches.
This event is being jointly organised by RTIG and UTMC.

In this video Chris Small from Transport for Greater Manchester discusses their lessons from implementing and managing bus priority.