We expect to train students at different levels in order to create a new generation of professionals that are fully aware of the challenges and benefits involved in designing, planning, financing, implementing and operating efficient BRT. Simultaneously, we will focus several of our Ph.D. students into BRT issues, and develop graduate level courses on BRT opening a continuous stream of research that will be fed by real world problems, the results of which will cover the knowledge gap to overcome those problems.

Towards this end, we envision the development of a BRT course, taught cooperatively across all of the participating universities at the graduate level. This course will be geared towards training the next-generation of leaders in this field and will focus on bringing cutting edge research into the classroom, taking advantage of the unique multi-national team of experts involved. All these efforts will use internet intensively.

Training programs and specific courses

We would like to offer an opportunity to become more experienced in today’s transport challenges. Focused both for updating professionals who have left educational programs and for students who want to cover the knowledge gap to better overcome BRT issues. Recent initiatives:

• 2013 – MIT-PUC: BRT Corridor Design Workshop (15 hr weekly, 1 semester), you can review the results in the BRTOD website. It also included a Master Thesis fellowship.
• 2013 onwards – PUC: Planning Sustainable Transport, Citizenship and Cities (spanish, 10 hr weekly, 2nd semester). Introduces interdisciplinary approach to the traditional transportation curriculum including urban planning theory and practice. Focus on collaborative planning to foster more sustainable transport policies, including BRT.
• 2013 – City of Pereira, Colombia: Lecture course about BRT Design, Planning, and Operations. Taught by 6 different researchers (120 hr).
• 2012 – U. Politécnica de Cataluña, Spain: Innovation in the design and operation of urban public transport systems (10 hr). 45 atendees from the transit agency, bus operators and academia. Review here.
• 2011 – U. of Sydney: BRT Short course in network planning at ITLS. Emphasis in the role of high frequency corridors within the network, with 30 participants. More info here.

Graduate Study Programs

Fed by the continuous stream of research in real world problems, Universities of the Centre have incorporated BRT systems in several study programs. To mention some of them, Masters in Civil Engineering, in Transport, Transport Policy and Planning or Masters in Urban Planning, and also several PhD in Transportation Systems. They consider topics relevant to an appreciation of public transport operations and the role of public transport in the overall transport offer. For more info follow this link.

InternshipsWe encourage graduate students interested in a career in urban transport or research to participate in summer internships with leading BRT agencies. The CoE play the role of the catalyst, identifying potential interns and internships. Contact us here for more information.