A study into those design criteria which are used or should be used in the installation of bus and tram lanes was carried out. The first step was to produce an inventory of criteria mentioned in existing literature. One criterion only appeared to be clear and complete, viz the criterion mentioned by r lane: "the benefits ought to outbalance the disbenefits". Starting from this a first attempt was made to establish how the criterion could be shaped into concrete and tangible guidelines. The following division was made (1) aspects which can be quantified in terms of money (e.g. construction, maintenance, fuel consumption, rolling stock), (2) aspects which can be quantified in terms of time (e.g. travelling time of passengers, vehicle operation hours), and (3) aspects which cannot or can hardly be quantified (e.g. increase in number of passengers, improvement in the quality of public transport, shifting of modal split, etc). Although, in principle, each aspect should be measurable, there exists the possibility that arbitrary conditions are being imposed to take account of safety, provision for shops and the capacity of the road network. Finally two existing bus lanes were singled out in order to check the extent to which the aspects mentioned in the report played a part when the decision to construct these bus lanes was taken.
Abstract