About two weeks ago, the Government of Delhi, India unveiled the much hyped Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), previously popular here as the High Capacity Bus Corridor (HCBS) and the construction for which had been on for the last few months. The little under 6 Km BRT stretch that is now completed and is being trial run came at the cost of some lives (accidental deaths) and at the reported cost of about 3,000 heritage trees of Delhi. The dedicated bus lanes invited mixed reaction from the public; with the car users complaining about having to spend more time on the road now than before and the bus riders being annoyed with the bus-stands being displaced to the middle of the road. Poor design and lack of coordination between different stake holders further worsened the situation. And as if all of that wasn’t enough, the media has taken on itself to narrate the “failure of BRT story” with much fervour.

Curitiba is home of the most demonstrative BRT system in the world.  In Curitiba, several basic principles were promoted for success.  They were: 1) put in place an integrated transportation and land use plan with BRT as a key, driving element, 2) do everthing possible to reduce travel time of BRT operations, 3) use available proven technology to facilitate operations and management, 4) carefully oversee revenue collection and 5) continuously seek ways to improve planning, operations and management.
  At the USDOT,I launched a National BRT Demonstration Program in 1996.  The objective was to demonstrate BRT as a legitimate transit alternative and to insinuate BRT planning and engineering into the ongoing U.S. transportation decision-making process. Several BRT projects have been implemented following the promoted principles of the Curitiba BRT system. In addition, the 2005 Federal Transit authorization legislation includes a separate category of capital funding for BRT projects.

The New Delhi trial BRT seems to have suffered from deficit application of the key principles of BRT planning and development and a lack of strategic management during implementation. Cooperative and coordinated decision-making is essential. Strategic management would have involved more carefull identification, analysis and management of all risks – particularly inter-agency interfaces, and customer and opinion leader awareness in preparation for the rollout phase.