Public bus ridership hits record high despite capacity strains (Macau)
Public bus ridership hits record high despite capacity strains (Macau)
macaudailytimes.com.mo
Public bus ridership hits record high despite capacity strains
It looks like Macau's public transit system is seeing incredible increases in ridership. A 71% increase over 2020 is huge and that's wonderful, but the busses are hitting physical limits on how many people they can carry.
The city's been building out a LRT system that opened last year. Hopefully that will take some of the strain, but given the bus limitations, they'll need to keep adding rail as fast as possible.
Macau LRT Wikipedia Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macau_Light_Rapid_Transit
TIL Macau uses rubber-tired rail instead of steel wheels. I do wonder if there are studies showing the comparison between the two. Time to dive into the rabbit hole
Oh, you'll have fun with this rabbit hole! They're neat and used all around the world. The air train at SFO uses them, as does Mexico City.
I'm all for rail, but using rubber can be useful in all sorts of situations. It's simple and works well. And even with the disadvantages over steel wheels, like rolling resistance, they're not wildly expensive to run and maintain.
BRT lines are especially neat because a BRT allows a city to upgrade their bus system to light rail capacity without huge investment. E.g. San Francisco upgraded their Van Ness bus line to a BRT with wild success.