Electric buses using dedicated busways is the affordable, achievable and environmentally responsible way to link to the High Speed 2 rail hub at Toton, says Trent Barton managing director Jeff Counsell.
Responding to the East Midlands HS2 Strategic Board’s publication of its HS2 growth strategy document, Counsell says extending the NET tram west of Toton would be prohibitively expensive and hugely disruptive.
Instead, future generations of high capacity, zero emissions buses should use a mix of guided and unguided segregated busways, bus lanes and smart priority signalling to provide the mass rapid transport to connect the people of Derby and Derbyshire to HS2.
‘Forget what you know of today’s typical bus on local services beset by traffic and congestion’, he argues. ‘By the time HS2 is operational in the 2030s there will have been significant evolution in public transport vehicles and the infrastructure they run on.
‘Even today, there are clean, green, high capacity buses with great creature comforts running on smart networks including busways in cities such as Johannesburg, Mexico City, Adelaide and Accra. And closer to home, cities such as Cambridge and Manchester already benefit from rapid bus transit (BRT).
