Overview
In many urban areas, traffic congestion commonly delays bus services and adversely affects schedule reliability. Bus priorities on streets and highways have been successfully used for almost a half century. More recently, some communities have adopted policies and regulations that permit buses to use shoulders on arterial highways and freeways to bypass congestion, either as interim or long-term treatments. Bus on shoulder (BOS) operations have been working successfully for nearly two decades in several urban locations. Lack of information on the benefits, issues in its interface with traffic operations, safety issues, and implementation issues have been some of the reasons for reluctance by other communities to use the BOS concept.