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]] Guided buses are Bus es steered for part or all of their route by external means, usually on a dedicated track. This track, which often parallels existing Roads , excludes all other forms of Traffic , permitting the maintenance of reliable Schedule s on heavily used corridors even during Rush Hour s. Guidance systems can be either physical, such as kerbs, or remote, such as optical or radio guidance. On kerb-guided buses (often abbreviated to KGB) small guide wheels are attached to the regular wheels of the bus, and these engage vertical kerbs on either side of the trackway. The bus is steered in the normal way away from the guideway. The start of the guideway is funnelled from a wide track to the normal width. The trackway allows for high speed operation on a narrow guideway. Only a few examples currently exist, but more are proposed in various countries. The longest guided busway in the world is the Adelaide O-Bahn route in Adelaide South Australia , which has been operating since the mid 1980s. The Adelaide O-Bahn has been reasonably successful. A number of guided busways currently operate in the United Kingdom . They are at:
Plans for a guided busway in to St Ives Railway line. In December 2005 the scheme was approved; construction may start within five years if funding can be obtained. alignment for a short length in Mannheim]] In Mannheim , Germany , from May 1992 to September 2005 a guided busway shared the tram alignment for a few hundred meters, which allowed buses to avoid a congested stretch of road in a location where there was no space for an extra traffic lane. It was discontinued as the majority of buses fitted with guide wheels were withdrawn for age reasons. There are no plans to convert newer buses. RUBBER-TYRED TRAMS rubber-tyred tram for the future system in Padua , Italy ]] A further development of the guided bus is the "tramway on tyres", a rubber-tyred vehicle guided by a fixed rail in the ground, which draws current from overhead electric wires like a conventional s on the sides but a central Guidance Rail that is grasped by opposing sets of angled metal guide wheels along the length of the vehicle; the weight of the vehicle is borne by rubber tyres on bogies to which theguide wheels are attached. Power is supplied by Overhead Lines or by rechargable Batteries in areas where the overhead wires are not desired. The Bombardier system has been adopted in Nancy and Caen , France , while the Translohr is in use in the city of Clermont-Ferrand , France, and is under construction in Padua , L'Aquila , and Mestre - Venice in Italy . The Translohr is intended for guidance-only operation, while the Bombardier system can be driven as a normal bus as requirements dictate, such as the return journey to the depot. Both kinds of vehicles are considered buses, not trams, by law, and require licence plates and bus-specific safety equipment. These systems offer a much more tram-like experience than a regular guided bus, and offer some advantages over trams, such as a potentially smaller turning radius, the ability to climb higher gradients, and quieter running around corners. The infrastructure installation can be less complicated than the installation of a complete tram line in an existing street. While these systems have been likened to the Tram equivalent of Rubber-tyred Metro s, they are also correspondingly less efficient than steel-wheeled light rail vehicles. Other experimental bus systems exist with non-physical guidance systems, such as sensors or magnets buried in the roadway. {Link without Title} SEE ALSO
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