EOT and MBTA Do Good with BRT

Enough acronyms for you? BRT stands for Bus Rapid Transit.

The state’s transportation planners (yes, you, Jim Aloisi!) are doing a very good thing with their latest plan to implement aspects of Bus Rapid Transit on the existing Route 28 Bus Route.

They are marketing it as “28X” and they will be implementing (as feasible) dedicated lanes, stand-alone stations (as opposed to stops) and off-board ticketing. See details here, here, and here.

This last item is of particular importance. On-board fare collection on buses has proven to be the Achilles Heel of automated fare collection (which this space has long supported). The continued use of paper tickets (versus CharlieCards) results in serious dwell time delays. Moving that delay off the bus and into the station will dramatically lower the time spent in stations.

This is a great example of taking an existing transportation asset and using technology and incremental capital improvements to vastly improve service. Well done.