MetroBus (Bristol)

MetroBus is a bus rapid transit system currently under construction in Bristol, England. It is a joint project between Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire councils. Services are expected to begin in 2017.

MetroBus is part of a package of transport infrastructure improvements in the West of England which have been designed to help unlock economic growth, tackle poor public transport links in South Bristol, long bus journey times and high car use in the North Fringe of the city and M32 motorway corridor.

MetroBus vehicles will have priority over other traffic at junctions and use a combination of segregated busways and bus lanes. They will be hybrid buses with two doors, one for boarding and one for exiting, in order to shorten stop times.

Five routes will be offered by MetroBus:

In Bristol city centre, MetroBus will remodel significant areas by the Cenotaph to create more space for pedestrians.

Development on the £200 million project started in 2006. Three routes were originally proposed:

An addition to the North Fringe package was proposed in 2015. The Cribbs Patchway MetroBus Extension (CPME) will provide a more direct route from Bristol Parkway railway station to Cribbs Causeway, via housing developments at Filton Airfield.

In 2014 incoming directly elected mayor George Ferguson changed the route to avoid buses travelling along the Bristol Harbour dockside in front of the M Shed museum and over Prince Street Bridge.

The scheme's promoters claim that it will reduce journey times by up to 75 per cent between Long Ashton Park and Ride and Hengrove Park.

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