Yichang made buses faster by redesigning the street around them

Yichang's buses had become part of the congestion they were supposed to relieve. The city partnered with ADB on a BRT project that opened in 2016 with dedicated bus lanes and 19 operating lines.

The neat move was to treat the BRT corridor as an operating environment. Parking management was introduced along the corridors, pedestrian paths were reclaimed for bus users and others, and new drivers were retrained and examined before service.

ADB's result story said about 260,000 people used the new lines daily, just over 40% of all city bus trips, with average savings of 15 minutes per journey. Its 2020 annual report later said bus use in Yichang rose 149% after completion.

The project page anchors the scale: ADB financed $150 million of a $515.10 million sustainable urban transport project that included BRT, nonmotorized transport, road-network improvement and capacity building.

Give buses the whole operating lane

Dedicated lanes protected the service from the congestion that had made buses unreliable.

Parking management kept the corridor from being quietly reclaimed by cars.

Pedestrian access made the bus easier to reach, not just faster once boarded.

Driver retraining turned new infrastructure into a repeatable service standard.

A transit fix works better when the street, route map, curb rules and operator behavior are changed together.

The BRT became a visible operating backbone for the city. ADB reported 260,000 daily users in 2016 and later cited 149% growth in bus use, 38% of surveyed BRT users switching from private vehicles and taxis, and 42,480 tons of CO2-equivalent emissions reductions in 2019.