Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is acknowledged to be an emerging mode of public transport and has the ability to deliver fast and high quality urban mobility. A BRT networks consist of six major components, namely the running ways, the stations, the vehicles, the fare collection, the ITS technologies, and the service and operating plans and it is the combination of these six dimensions that defines a BRT system and its quality.
Using microscopic simulation as the experimental framework for a calibrated and coded corridor within the Metropolitan network in Sydney, Australia, the impact of these parameters is explored. The objective of this work is to identify which parameters are most important to BRT system performance. Several scenarios including the increasing capacity of vehicles, changing frequency and the introduction of bus lanes have been designed and measures used from the output of the microsimulation to compare with a baseline scenario. The research findings point to the importance of particular components in the design of a BRT system and in particular the frequency of the services, the number of bus stops within the network, the presence of bus lanes and the demand applied on the network.

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