Bus rapid transit creep

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Bus rapid transit creep (BRT creep) is a phenomenon where bus systems that fail to meet the requirements for being considered "true bus rapid transit" are designated as bus rapid transit regardless. These systems are often marketed as a fully realized bus rapid transit system, but end up being described as more of an improvement to regular bus service by proponents of the "BRT creep" term. The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy published several guidelines in an attempt to define what constitutes the term "true BRT", known as the BRT Standard, in an attempt to avert this phenomenon.

Proponents of the "Bus Rapid Transit" term cite it as a form of mass transit that uses buses in a dedicated right-of-way, ideally providing speed and volume of service similar to light rail. A commonly cited advantage of BRT is the lack of need to build new rail infrastructure, as new rail has greater initial capital costs than using existing roads and cannot be changed easily.

The flexibility of BRT, with its greater similarity to other forms of bus transportation, also means that there are fewer obstacles to removing expensive or difficult-to-implement features such as dedicated lanes. On the downside, however, this flexibility can lead to service enhancements being whittled away in a manner that is not possible once rail solutions have been built. (Transit agencies have incentive to strip down service after a BRT route is initially presented, partially because BRT might have up to 24% higher operating costs than rail solutions of a similar size according to a parametric cost model, if traffic signal priority is not effective. On the other hand, "For trunk line capacities below about 1,600 spaces per hour, the headway-versus-cost trade-off favors BRT".^[1]) This type of stripping down service is known as BRT creep.