A Transit Mode Combining the Best of Bus and Rail

A transit modal concept has been developed which demonstrates good potential as an attractive yet realistic alternative for urban automobile commuters. Called BTV (for Bi-modal Transit Vehicle), the concept consists of rubber-tired automated transit vehicles operating in trains on exclusive guideways. At designated stations, certain of the vehicles are detached and driven manually by transit operating personnel onto surface streets for neighborhood distribution and collection. Urban commuters thus incur no time-consuming intermodal transfer.