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From Curitiba and Bogotá to Ahmedabad and Beijing, bus rapid transit (BRT) has promised to be a quick, cost-effective and efficient method of urban transportation that combines the speed and quality of rail transportation with the flexibility of a bus system. BRT is a rubber-tired mode of urban public transportation that combines buses, busways and stations with intelligent transportation systems, operational and financial plans, integrated ticketing, and a branded identity. It has been a dominant feature of urban planning for decades in cities as diverse as Bogotá, Curitiba, Guangzhou, Lima, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and New York, among others. Whereas previous studies have considered the characteristics of BRT (Deng and Nelson 2011; Jarzab et al. 2002; Levinson et al. 2003) or its impact on transportation planning (Ferbrache 2019; Paget-Seekins and Munoz 2016), this book is the first attempt to understand the global proliferation of BRT.

Much of its current popularity is due to the vehement promotion undertaken by Enrique Penalosa, Bogotá’s Mayor from 1998 to 2001 and again from 2016 to 2019, and his ties with the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) (Wood 2014b, 2019b). More than two decades since Bogotá’s Transmilenio opened to global acclaim, BRT has become one of the most prominent policy solutions of the 21^st century. Around the world, Transmilenio-style systems are commended by BRT advocates for improving mobility, by reducing travel time and improving comfort and reliability; and its transformation into best practice is often attributed to its affordability, brief implementation phase and generous political payoffs. It is presented as a best practice appropriate within a variety of geographical and socio-political settings, and able to tackle problems related to economic exclusion and inequality, urban sprawl and sustainability, and transportation inaccessibility.

The Bogotá model of BRT first arrived in South Africa in July 2006 at a special session of the Southern African Transport Conference (SATC), the largest transportation convention in the region and a critical platform for dialogue on issues ranging from finance to public transportation. Lloyd Wright, a global expert on BRT, was invited by the National Department of Transport to host a day-long workshop on the principles, attributes and engineering specifications of BRT. This learning was reinforced in August 2006 when Lloyd Wright visited politicians and transportation planners in Cape Town, eThekwini, Johannesburg and Tshwane to present the attributes of BRT. Interested cities then took a select group of politicians, planners, operators and consultants to Bogotá to see how BRT operates and meet with transportation operators. Policymakers returned from these study tours eager to introduce BRT locally.

Since 2006, BRT has been adopted in six South African cities to improve transportation services, especially for the urban poor. Cape Town, eThekwini, Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela Bay, Rustenburg, and Tshwane are currently in various stages of planning and implementation: in August 2009, just three years after learning of the Bogotá model of BRT, Rea Vaya Phase 1A opened in Johannesburg as the first full-feature BRT system in an African context; in May 2011, Cape Town’s MyCiTi Phase 1A became operational; in May 2012, eThekwini Council approved plans to proceed with the first three lines of Go Durban!; and in July 2012, the cascade continued with Rustenburg and Tshwane beginning construction on Yarona and A Re Yeng. Not all cities have had a simple, straightforward experience, however: since 2008, Nelson Mandela Bay’s attempt to introduce BRT has been stalled by municipal politics and poor planning, and in spite of considerable efforts, the project remains in a state of postponement.

While the South African systems are unmistakably modeled after the achievements of those in Bogotá, the process through which South African officials learned of, and implemented BRT, remains unexplored. In mapping the learning process, this book considers how and why city leaders adopt circulated best practice.