Author(s)

S. Basbas

Abstract

It is well known that public transport plays an important role in sustainable urban mobility worldwide. This is the reason why local authorities have designed and implemented various priority measures in order to improve the performance of the public transport system and to promote its use in their areas. An efficient public transport system means less use of private passenger cars and it can lead to the overall improvement of the traffic and environmental conditions. Within the framework of this paper the role of bus priority measures in sustainable urban mobility is examined and presented. The reference area is the city of Thessaloniki, Greece and the bus priority measures examined and evaluated include with-flow and contra-flow bus lanes. Keywords: sustainable mobility, bus transport priority measures, bus lanes. 1 Introduction There are quite a lot of definitions concerning the sustainable transportation systems and sustainable mobility. An accurate definition for sustainable transportation systems originates from the European Union Council of Ministers of Transport. According to this definition, a sustainable transportation system is one that addresses the following issues [1]: • Allows the basic access and development needs of individuals, companies and society to be met safely and in a manner consistent with human and ecosystem health, and promotes equity within and between successive generations.

Keywords

sustainable mobility, bus transport priority measures, bus lanes.