According to the WeChat public account "Guangzhou Transportation" on February 24, several bus routes in Guangzhou are planning to be adjusted and opinions are now solicited. This adjustment involves multiple BRT-related lines, which has attracted attention from the outside world.
According to the "Bus Adjustment Settings Table", B20 and B7 Express Line are integrated, and the reason is to reduce the overlap of the western section of the BRT channel and improve the operating efficiency of the BRT system. In addition, 6 BRT-related lines are planned to be suspended, among which the adjustment reason for the B1 Express Line is "a B1 peak express line, which is flexibly dispatched by B1"; the adjustment reason for the adjustment reason for the B4 Express Line is "a B4 peak express line, which has reduced passenger flow"; the adjustment reason for the adjustment reason for the B5 Express Line is "a B5 peak express line, which is flexibly dispatched by B5"; the adjustment reason for the B13, B14, and B23 is planned to be suspended, and the reason for the adjustment is: all three lines belong to the BRT channel diversion line, and the passenger flow has declined in recent years, and the diversion effect has been greatly weakened.
Public information shows that in 2010, Guangzhou's first rapid bus system (BRT), known as the "Eastern Rainbow", came into being. The route connects Tianhe District Sports Center and Huangpu District Xiayuan Community. It is 21.8 kilometers long and has 26 stations. It has successively won four international awards: the "2011 International Sustainable Transportation Development Award", "Sustainable Development-Green and Low Carbon Award", "United Nations 2012 Climate Change Response Beacon Award", "2013 BRT System Gold Standard Award", and the National Advanced Collective Award, becoming the new business card of Guangzhou's smart transportation.
The so-called BRT adopts the "closed corridor + flexible line" model, and only BRT vehicles are taken in the BRT dedicated channel, reducing the interference between buses and social vehicles, and achieving rapid buses. Afterwards, Guangzhou successively built 31 BRT bus routes, covering 750 pairs of bus stops in the city, accounting for about 15.6% of bus stops in the central urban area. BRT bus has thus become the city's bus transfer hub channel and has become the busiest BRT system in Asia.
In 2020, Guangzhou BRT celebrates its tenth anniversary. An article released by the Guangdong Provincial Department of Transportation at that time showed that as of 2019, the average operating speed of vehicles in the BRT channel in Guangzhou exceeded 24 kilometers per hour, an increase of 84% compared with the speed of buses along Zhongshan Avenue for the first time. The average speed of social vehicles along the BRT has increased from 13.9 km/h to 17.8 km/h, which is 28% faster than before opening. Since the launch of Guangzhou BRT, it has saved citizens an average of 1.48 million yuan per day, and reduced carbon dioxide emissions by more than 86,000 tons throughout the year. The article said that Guangzhou's BRT model has been successfully promoted to all parts of the world and has become a booster for the development of international smart transportation.
However, with the improvement of the subway network and the increase in electric vehicles, the travel habits of Guangzhou citizens have changed, and the proportion of bus travel has decreased, which has also affected the passenger capacity of BRT.
Public reports show that since the opening of Guangzhou BRT in 2010, the peak daily passenger flow has reached 850,000 (2015 data), but the average daily passenger flow in 2023 has dropped to about 400,000, a decrease of more than 50%. In 2024, this data dropped to 266,200 passengers, accounting for 10.78% of the bus passenger volume in the city center. In January 2025, the average daily passenger flow of Guangzhou BRT was only 387,000, and the utilization rate of dedicated lanes during the peak period was only 41%, a decrease of 8% from the same period last year. The average departure interval during the peak period was 9.8 minutes, an extension of 1.5 minutes from last year, and the passenger satisfaction was 82.4%, a decrease of 3.6 points from the same period last year.
In August 2024, the Guangzhou Municipal Transportation Bureau issued a solicitation of opinions, and B27 plans to suspend operations. This is the first time that wired code has been applied for suspension of operations since the BRT system was opened. The Paper found that B27 is currently in operation.
According to the Southern+ February 2025 report, at the Guangzhou Two Sessions, many representatives proposed to optimize the BRT lane usage rules in the context of increasingly congested traffic to improve road traffic efficiency. At present, other cities in China with BRT lanes are seeking change. If Jinan wants to reduce the scope of the dedicated lanes, Chengdu needs to transform into a smart rail test line, and Beijing's BRT has been suspended.
The report said that the traffic efficiency of Guangzhou BRT has also caused controversy, that is, the speed advantage of BRT dedicated lanes has shrunk. Even if the bus speed remains at 20km-25km/h, the speed of the subway in the same area reaches 35km-40km/h; in addition, from the perspective of cost-effectiveness, the annual maintenance cost of the BRT system is about 120 million yuan. Compared with the average daily transportation volume of the entire subway network, the unit passenger cost is significantly higher. In 2024, the operating loss of the BRT system expanded to 180 million yuan, and the subsidy for unit passengers reached 2.3 yuan (0.7 yuan for the subway); from the perspective of space occupation, the BRT dedicated lane accounts for more than 30% of the road rights of the main roads such as Zhongshan Avenue. Monitoring during non-peak hours (9:00-16:00) shows that the vehicle passing through BRT lane is only 18% of the adjacent social lanes, causing idle resources disputes.
