Bus lane

[1][2] The setup consisted of three-lanes towards the peak direction (south in the morning; north in the evening), and one contraflow lane.

In 1948, the East Side Trolley Tunnel in Providence, Rhode Island was converted to bus-only use and became the first dedicated busway in the United States, continuing to operate to this day.

The initial reason was to save the expense of rerouting the trolleybus, which was due to be scrapped on 3 November of that year.

[4][8][9] By 1972 there were over 140 kilometres (87 mi) of with-flow bus lanes in 100 cities within OECD member countries, and the network grew substantially in the following decades.

They may be long, continuous networks, or short segments used to allow buses to bypass bottlenecks or reduce route complexity, such as in a contraflow bus lane.

The road surface may have a distinctive color, usually red, which has been shown to reduce prohibited vehicles from entering bus lanes.

[15] In some cities, such as The Hague in the Netherlands, buses are allowed to use reserved tram tracks, usually laid in the middle of the road and marked with the text "Lijnbus".

A bus gate consists of a short section of road that only buses and authorised vehicles (typically taxis) can pass through.

According to the Sustainable Safety guidelines they would violate the principle of homogeneity and put road users of very different masses and speed behaviour into the same lane, which is generally discouraged.

The large number of electric vehicles on Norwegian roads slowed buses, defeating the purpose of bus lanes.

[24] Bus lanes can become ineffective if weak enforcement allows use by unauthorized vehicles[25] or illegal parking.

In 2009 and 2010 traffic surveys showed that in Brisbane on a number of urban arterials with bus and transit lanes, noncompliance rates were approaching 90%.