
O-bahn Busway - widforss
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Bahn_Busway
======
gwillz
The Obahn is pretty good. It's capacity is lacking though, because it's so
popular. When they were first testing it they pushed the buses up to 120km/h
but they shook so horrifically that they lowered the operating speed to
something like 80.

A lot of people criticised the tunnel extension into the city. After all, it
only saved ~5 minutes of travel time. I don't think most people in Adelaide
fully appreciate public transport yet.

Adelaide is often called the 20 minute city because you can just drive
anywhere in under that. But that's changing as our population grows. I really
hope there are more projects like this that get funded.

Adelaide used to have _the most extensive tram network in Australia_. It was
pulled up around the same time as Sydney pulled theirs but Melbourne didn't
(because they're the original hipster). Sydney had the money to reinstall
theirs but not Adelaide. There's a lot of politics around fixing our trams -
we almost dropped 40 million on a building a right hand turn.

[https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-01/why-was-
adelaides-...](https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-01/why-was-adelaides-
tram-network-ripped-up-in-the-1950s/9205768?pfmredir=sm)

~~~
steve_taylor
When I used to use the O-Bahn 15-25 years ago, the speed limit was 100 km/h
along most of the track, reducing only near the interchanges. Bus drivers
would frequently exceed the speed limit to make up time. I'm not sure what the
speed limit is now, but I'd be surprised if it maxed out at 80.

Edit: I just read about its speed limit being limited to 85 km/h due to wear
and tear and unevenness on the track. It seems the track is reaching the end
of its life.

~~~
dwd
I used in back in '86 while visiting Adelaide for the F1 GP and remembered it
being smooth, fast and super cool at the time.

Things wear out...

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Declanomous
This is really cool, and I wish we had more traffic-segregated bus services in
the US.

I found this paper from the university of Washington which has a bit more
information (DOC warning) [https://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/adelaide-
o-bahn-pa...](https://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/adelaide-o-bahn-
paper.doc)

The 12 km busway cost $97 million in 1999 AUD, which is ~$119 million USD
2018. I have a feeling that a similar project would end up costing something
like $75-80 million per mile, just based on transit projects in the US.

Chicago spent $41 million building 8 bus stations and painting a mile of
street red. [2] It was billed as BRT, but plans for multi-door boarding, and
off-bus fare collection were scrapped.

Projects like this aren't happening in the US because there is no political
will. If you are going to have bus lanes you need to have enforcement. Buses
should have cameras ticketing other vehicles in the bus lanes. Turn lanes
should not merge into bus lanes, drivers should be forced to wait for a green
arrow to make a turn across the bus lane.

There is definitely a need for service like this in the US, but we seem to
think that the best option is to have people like Elon Musk build private
tunnels that wealthy individuals can bring their private cars in. No matter
how you design that system there is no way it can provide the same capacity as
BRT. It's just another road with low-occupancy vehicles.

[2] [https://chi.streetsblog.org/2018/10/17/foia-ed-documents-
sho...](https://chi.streetsblog.org/2018/10/17/foia-ed-documents-show-loop-
link-has-provided-only-modest-speed-gains/)

~~~
bobthepanda
It is worth noting that part of the reason it was so cheap was because the
government had already purchased the required land for a freeway. Land
acquisition, as many infrastructure projects like CAHSR or Texas Central can
attest to, is easily some of the most costly and risky part of these projects,
even if you do decide to use eminent domain.

BRT has notable disadvantages; buses can move from side to side unlike rail,
so the tunnels and bridges have to be bigger or use proprietary guided
technology like this one. In general road surfaces wear away much faster than
rails. And rail vehicles perform much better once you factor in labor costs.
BRT is useful in some cases, like where there is no dominant trunk line and
buses can leave the roadway to serve different destinations; but eventually
the common trunk gains enough critical mass and you convert to light rail
anyways, as Seattle and Ottawa have discovered, and LA is considering for the
Orange Line BRT.

~~~
Declanomous
BRT would actually be amazingly useful in Chicago because a massive number of
people commute to central business district (The Loop).

Chicago owned all of the land used for the Loop link and it still cost $41
million, and has little of the benefits of actual BRT.

People here get incredibly upset when any road diet is discussed. Our
politicians rarely ride public transit, and laws and engineering guidelines
prevent projects which would reduce the volume of traffic carried. It's
absurd.

~~~
bobthepanda
It costs a lot to modify an existing street vs build a brand new road, mostly
because you have to modify drainage (Loop Link had concrete boarding platforms
in the middle of the street that certainly would've disrupted existing
drainage), bring the street up to modern standards, and keep the existing
street open during the work for all the buildings that front it. It's really
not all that simple.

In fact, the fact that it was on an existing street would make it very
expensive to modify; look at a picture of the O-Bahn and there's plenty of
space for construction vehicles and staging to set up, no one to get in the
way of, etc.

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dllu
There's an interesting gradation from buses to trains. I made a picture to
show this: [https://pics.dllu.net/file/dllu-
sc/d089a0155a.png](https://pics.dllu.net/file/dllu-sc/d089a0155a.png)

Everything on the left of the dotted line can go without rails/guidance and
everything on the right has to stay on rails.

1) regular buses

2) buses on specialized roads (busways)

3) guided buses which have extra wheels or electronic guidance to follow the
busway without the driver steering:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guided_bus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guided_bus)

4) bus/tram hybrids like the Bombardier Guided Light Transit, which usually
operates with a guide rail but has the ability to go without any rails:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_Guided_Light_Transi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_Guided_Light_Transit)

5) rubber tyred light rail systems (e.g. automated guideway transit systems,
often seen at airports)

6) rubber tyred heavy rail (e.g. Montreal Metro)

7) heavy rail

The lines between buses and trains will only get more blurred in the future
with autonomous bus platoons and the such.

~~~
stuaxo
Another dimension is which one pedestrians are OK to walk across on, though I
suppose that gets a bit fuzzy.

~~~
dllu
Yeah, there's a bunch of dimensions involving grade separation and such.

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totalthrowaway
This is such a relief to see purely for personal reasons. I was there as a
child, and had some memory of 'buses with little wheels on the side' \-- and
had eventually convinced myself it was a dream. No one I had ever mentioned it
to thought it was real.

With adult eyes it seems over-engineered, but I still want to ride it again
just because I want to support whoever thought that was a good idea and
managed to convince enough people to build it.

~~~
newnewpdro
> With adult eyes it seems over-engineered

It surprised me to see they didn't simply use retractable railcar wheels like
the railroad maintenance trucks, which is apparently a fairly standard "road-
rail vehicle":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road%E2%80%93rail_vehicle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road%E2%80%93rail_vehicle)

~~~
Doxin
Those don't go terribly fast, In addition to the tiny tiny wheels not having a
lot of grip leading to slow acceleration and deceleration. Getting those to
align with the track is an operation that you'll only want to be doing at
standstill.

~~~
newnewpdro
They aren't the drive wheels so they have no impact on acceleration, the
rubber tires are still used for traction.

Alignment could be easily automated today, or a low-tech mechanical guide
mechanism could be added for the bus.

I'd expect the maximum comfortable speed to be substantially higher than the
guide wheel approach. That guide wheel design seems better suited for aligning
the rail wheels than continuous operation.

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tapanpatel
I live in Adelaide, and use it everyday to commute. I live around almost end
of the north eastern suburbs, but my travel time is still lesser than few who
lives closer to city, thanks to O-bahn. I enjoy my bus ride everyday, the
views of Hills, Parks and River on the way are beautiful and refreshing.

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keyle
I've taken the O-bahn for a couple of years when living locally. It's great.
You can't wait to get out of traffic and hear the bus just roar to high speed
in a straight line, with only a few stops to being a half-hour away from the
city.

I'm sad to read that they limited it to 85kmh. In my time, they definitely
were going 100kmh, and every nuts and bolts rumbled on these old buses...
Mostly the fault of the cement track, not the bus themselves. :)

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evolve2k
I live in Adelaide, shout out if you have any practical questions you’d like
answered.

The buses look like normal every day buses but if you look closely you can see
the little wheels that protrude out the sides to keep the special buses on the
bus way. The bus otherwise drives around like a normal bus until it drives
onto the cement track and the little side wheels are then used just to keep
the bus from scraping the sides and just rolling along easily.

~~~
rocky1138
Is it useful? Is it cost-effective? Are people happy with it? Are there plans
to introduce it elsewhere because it's so successful? Could you come to Canada
please and convince our government to do it?

~~~
ndnxhs
It is useful. I don't take it often because it doesn't go my way but I used it
once to get to a friends house and it was pretty amazing. Really fast and
unobstructed by traffic.

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rmccue
Adelaide, Brisbane [1], and Sydney [2][3] all have busways to some extent,
although the O-bahn is the only guided busway.

Brisbane is also in the process of upgrading their busways to something like
rubber-tyred trams (bi-articulated busses) with the Brisbane Metro project
[4].

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busways_in_Brisbane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busways_in_Brisbane)
[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool%E2%80%93Parramatta_T...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool%E2%80%93Parramatta_T-
way) [3]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North-West_T-
way](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North-West_T-way) [4]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane_Metro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane_Metro)

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mdc2161
Seems similar to the guide-wheel system shown in the Boring Company's demo
yesterday: [https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-boring-company-car-
fli...](https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-boring-company-car-flinging-
tunnel/)

It seems the Boring Company expects much higher top-end speeds, however.
Perhaps smaller vehicles and autonomous driving will help with that.

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IshKebab
There's one of these in Cambridge too. It's an completely idiotic idea though.
It requires modifying the buses and because it is made of custom concrete
blocks made to fairly tight tolerances it is vastly more expensive than a road
with rising bollards.

~~~
Symbiote
"A conventional road would have been too wide to fit on top of existing
railway embankments and across the under-bridges along parts of the route."

So a normal road wasn't possible.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridgeshire_Guided_Busway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridgeshire_Guided_Busway)

~~~
IshKebab
Yeah that's just not true though. The guided busway is at least the width of
two buses for the entire length. A road doesn't have to be any wider. Under
bridges it could be a single lane.

It's just an excuse to justify it.

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egourlao
It might have been an inspiration for the Busway in Nantes, France:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nantes_Busway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nantes_Busway)

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jumelles
Hiroshima has something similar, if a bit more train than bus:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astram_Line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astram_Line)

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cruise9
It feels cheap and nasty to ride on compared to a train. Still better than a
regular bus for speed which means you're not on it for long (usually).

