One thing I forgot to mention in the video is that the busway is 32 miles long. That is crazy long considering the entire thing (apart from the bridge) is segregated and has zero conflicting road junctions on the entire thing. It took me 1 hour and 20 mins to do the entire route at 10pm, which is an average speed of 24 mph, and the max speed is 43 mph. Buses are timetabled to run every 15 seconds in rush hour. Throughout the day I counted a bus every 20 seconds (this is an average as the buses bunch together into groups of buses), and despite how often the buses are, they are often full and you have to wait foe several buses to pass before you can fit inside one. The route runs 24 hours and at the quietest time of 3am there is a bus every 120 seconds.
only issue on the metrobus is that its one of the most used transit lines in istanbul, so it can get really crammed in buses. if that aint a problem for you then okay
Living in Turkey the only problem with the BRT are the people. They deployed couple more busses today and it still can't handle the amount of people on peak hours such as common job shift hours. If you are in or and will be in Turkey I can help you understand and film other transport systems in Turkey such as the tram lines and the metro lines.
My family’s origin country (Turkey) always has impressive public transport. Including escalators and lifts. Turkey is also known for their doctors, nurses, surgeons, and beauty specialists. The prices in Turkey are pretty cheap for most countries for buying products although it can be pricey for housing.
Heres something off topic that you may find interesting. :) The name of my country has nothing to do with the interesting and delicious bird 'turkey'...... .....but the name of the bird does have a connection with the name of my country, let me explain. :) In the past 40 years 37 countries have changed their name, partially or fully. Obviously one can not change the name of an apple or an orange etc in other languages, but country names are like peoples' individual names, so if you're named John we don't call you Karen. :) Name of my country has always been Türkiye, it's been known as such since around the 1200's. The name it self has a suffix, '-iye', that is Turk-iye, where the -iye suffix means 'land of/belonging to', just like the Latin suffix of '-ia', which exists in such country names like Austr-ia, Austral-ia, Indones-ia etc. Basically, the use of '-iye/-ia' is the same as the the use of '-land' suffix in country names like Ire(Eire)-land, Po(le)-land, Eng(Anglo)-land and so on and so on. Many would remember the country Czechoslovak-ia which changed it's name to Czech Republic and a few years ago changed that to Czechia (that is Czech-ia). The Latin suffix -ia probably originates from Turkish -iye as Turkish been over 10,000 years is much older than Latin which is around 1300 years old. Spelled in different languages in different ways to phonetically resemble (to sound like) 'Türkiye' we got various spellings like; Turq-uía (in Spanish), Turch-ia (in Italian), Turq-uie (in French) Turk-ei (in German) Turk-ey (in English) Mind you this was way before the animal we currently know as turkey was found by the europeans when they explored the north americas. The bird was first sent to europe from north americas in the year 1519, so up until that point there was no bird named turkey.... ...they came across the bird and thought it was a specie of the fowl/chicken they had been buying from the country of Turkiye at the time, so they named the bird 'Turkey Fowl' to define 'Turkish Chicken'... ....just like how a dog breed is known as German Shepherd (because it's from Germany), American Bulldog, British Terrier, Greek Harehound etc etc. In time you don't get to call the harehound simply as Greek or you don't call the terrier Britirsh, or shepherd as simply German, but in time the Turkish Fowl started to be called just 'Turkey' and later 'turkey', and this went on for hundreds of years. Now in modern times, this caused confusion, especially when we have people across the world unable to point to their own country on an atlas. Basically we didn't change the name of our country, we changed the mistake made in the English language. : ) So, there's some tid bit information for you to have a great day, if you read upto this point you have a great night too, ohh just have a wonderfull life. : ) Best wishes. ;)
Welcome to Turkey Beno! You can find thyssen esclators in m2 metro line and you can find 5 thyssen lifts in metrocity shopping mall and also you can find strange otis indicators in Turkey.
Every 15 seconds? Impressive! That said I've not been to Istanbul yet... (I have been to Turkey once in 2015 but just as a day trip to Bodrum from the Greek islsnd of Kos)
woah, you came to Türkiye! because I live in capital Ankara I only got to experience the metrobus system 4 times (all in a single trip to İstanbul) but it sure was incredible how frequent the buses were. though even _that_ isn't enough with how fuckin overpopulated İstanbul is; I often see images of it get overwhelmed especially in rush hours.
@@gabrielstravels I am not sure if converting it into a metro line would increase capacity. There is already a huge number of buses which travel with very fast acceleration, and are very frequent. Not much more can be done, and the stations don't have any room to be expanded, due to it running in the middle of a dual carriageway. What Istanbul desperately needs is a new metro line that crosses between Europe and Asia. The metro system is divided into two halves in the most awkward inconvenient way.
@@benoliftsThere actually is one called Marmaray however it's too slow. Currently an express metro line called M34 Hızray is in the works, it will also make transiting to other metro lines easier. Sadly it's still waiting approval from the central government despite the municipality being pretty much ready to begin construction.
Fantastic. We most likely will never get anything as good as that anywhere here in the UK. The Cambridge and Luton ones looked great though. Buses should have priority. Especially with trying to be more environmentally friendly, and especially with electric ones.
There's one guided busway i don't know if you considered in the UK (i understand about the times at the moment with GoNorthWest having just taken over it from First) which is the Manchester to Atherton/Leigh guided busway V1/2? The Guided part starts in Ellenbrook, then goes to a P&R and small bus interchange where the 2 routes divide then one continues on the guided route to Leigh and the other goes to Atherton. Yes, it does have to cross junctions but it doesn't have to wait very long as its prioritised, but if you time it right, its a decent service into Manchester. This service is there because Leigh doesn't have a tram, or even a train service since the Beeching cuts in the 60s
I have been on this busway (although I was surfing the buses rather than riding inside them). It is an interesting busway, but is not anywhere near as good as Istanbul. The buses are very infrequent. For the general public to see these busway systems as something they would prefer to travel on than their own car, the system has to show that it is as good as a railway. All of the busways in the UK fail to do this. They need to run buses as often as the London underground runs trains. Also the Leigh busway suddenly ends in the middle of nowhere. Yet again another example of a busway that has been cut back to the point where it fails to achieve what it is designed to do. It should have been built to run the entire way from Leigh to Manchester, including bridges, tunnels, and large concrete structures to bypass over roads into the center of Manchester, which means that buildings would have to be knocked down that are in its way. Other countries are able to build these transport infrastructure projects properly, but the UK seems to be unable to nowadays.
3:16 Metrobus is actually the company who runs the busway - the busway name is Fastway. I live near Crawley (when not at uni) and Fastway is yeah, just a typical UK bus service but improved 4:05 I could say the same for Bristol Metrobus - hell, only their m2 route (City Centre - Long Ashton P&R) actually has a short section of guided busways, the other routes are just normal buses with buy before you board ticketing and dual door buses
actually its the most used public transport line in Istanbul with around a million daily users, there is a 400k difference between metrobus and most used metro line, m2, its more used than suburban rail aswell, and thats not because the rail network is small its actually pretty large with well over 400km of tracks its just that metrobus is so succesfull. its a great example of what brt os capable if its done well
That’s not the most frequent bus though. 345K in Beijing in China has a normal 5 buses per minute frequency during the workday rush hour. They even designed a special platform to make sure a bus can be fully filled within 18 seconds.
Back when the metrobus line first came into operation, Phileas buses were purchased to run exclusively for this service. However, they were terrible at handling the hilly route (I mean Istanbul isn't Eindhoven, lol). Unreliability issues made them almost inoperable, not mentioning some buses catching fire out of nowhere. They were then replaced by the Mercedes Capacity model. Today, all of the Phileases survived are getting rusty in the junkyard unfortunately.
All of the Phileas buses are rotting away in a scrapyard. They were sluggish, couldn't climb hills, notoriously unreliable and spare parts are harder to find than gold in a haystack. So they ultimately scrapped all the buses into a corner, and lost millions of Euro as a result. A big FUCK YOUR TAX MONEY from the municipality.
Istanbul is Europes Biggest/Largest City it’s a Mega city it’s Huge Massive the population is like 20 Million people that is why istanbul is currently Constructing 11 New underground Metro lines to stop traffic congestion
I have watched a few of his videos. I disagree with a lot of his opinions. He calls the VAL a gadgetbahn and claims that a regular metro would be better. I strongly disagree with this. The VAL is one of the best designed metros ever invented and outperforms the majority of other metros, and works seamlessly and perfectly. While it might propriety, which means that 3rd party companies can't work on it fully, however it means that Siemens is able to perfect every aspect of it down to the tiniest details which makes it work to perfection.
The crawley busway is actually called the 'fastway' and yeah it makes no sense even having it when the route 100 dosent even touch the guided busway or really any bus lanes that other buses don't use and you will also notice that once the 100 and 20 leave sussex and go into surrey apart from the fastway sign on the buses and just 3 bus stops in horley with a fastway poster on them there is no sign of a busway.
It's not a bus actually. It's a metrobus. And metrobuses are one of the most busy transportation ways on the Istanbul so a metrobus in every 15 seconds actually makes sence.
Why did they choose to drive on the left? How does left hand traffic merge with right had traffic on the bridge? Won’t the headlights blind oncoming traffic?
Ive often wondered what would happen if we made our railways into bus only roads and put 100 mph busses on them instead of trains. Would it be cheaper with better services? Only joking!!as I like trains.
The boarding times of double deckers is too slow. The route couldn't run with the capacity needed with slow boarding. 4 door bendy buses are very fast to board with all door boarding.
@@benoliftsAs much as I love double deckers for its scenery, this is exactly why bendy buses need to return to UK cities! The amount of dwell time on British buses especially outside London is pathetic with buses almost only having one door for entry and exit...
@@akyraisconfused Of course! Here in Italy it is the norm for city buses to have three doors at least, and that's on 12m long rigid single deckers we're talking about!
@@gabrielstravels 12 meter buses struggle in the UK. There is so much risk of tail strike the drivers have to drive them slowly. The UK's roads are very problematic in places.
It is because the route was designed for Phileas buses that had doors on both sides. Then, they were replaced by Mercedes capacity (regular lefthand drive buses) due to their lack of power and severe unreliability issues. Thus, the busway is backwards, lol. Bad planning from the municipality I guess...
One thing I forgot to mention in the video is that the busway is 32 miles long. That is crazy long considering the entire thing (apart from the bridge) is segregated and has zero conflicting road junctions on the entire thing. It took me 1 hour and 20 mins to do the entire route at 10pm, which is an average speed of 24 mph, and the max speed is 43 mph. Buses are timetabled to run every 15 seconds in rush hour. Throughout the day I counted a bus every 20 seconds (this is an average as the buses bunch together into groups of buses), and despite how often the buses are, they are often full and you have to wait foe several buses to pass before you can fit inside one. The route runs 24 hours and at the quietest time of 3am there is a bus every 120 seconds.
Hi Ben!
Absolutely amazing.
only issue on the metrobus is that its one of the most used transit lines in istanbul, so it can get really crammed in buses. if that aint a problem for you then okay
Living in Turkey the only problem with the BRT are the people. They deployed couple more busses today and it still can't handle the amount of people on peak hours such as common job shift hours. If you are in or and will be in Turkey I can help you understand and film other transport systems in Turkey such as the tram lines and the metro lines.
My family’s origin country (Turkey) always has impressive public transport. Including escalators and lifts. Turkey is also known for their doctors, nurses, surgeons, and beauty specialists. The prices in Turkey are pretty cheap for most countries for buying products although it can be pricey for housing.
And Turkish cuisine is an absolute treat as well - I do love an authentic lamb kofte/shish kebab with salad and some rice! Absolutely epic food
@@gabrielstravels I only ate chicken nuggets and pizza in Turkey. The prices are crazy cheap, and the fast food tasted better than in the UK.
@@benolifts The Turks do make their own pizza as well! They call it lahmacun and pide. I tried the lahmacun and it was pretty good tbh!
@@gabrielstravels Oh yeah, they are the best.
Heres something off topic that you may find interesting. :)
The name of my country has nothing to do with the interesting and delicious bird 'turkey'......
.....but the name of the bird does have a connection with the name of my country, let me explain. :)
In the past 40 years 37 countries have changed their name, partially or fully.
Obviously one can not change the name of an apple or an orange etc in other languages,
but country names are like peoples' individual names, so if you're named John we don't call you Karen. :)
Name of my country has always been Türkiye, it's been known as such since around the 1200's.
The name it self has a suffix, '-iye', that is Turk-iye, where the -iye suffix means 'land of/belonging to',
just like the Latin suffix of '-ia', which exists in such country names like
Austr-ia, Austral-ia, Indones-ia etc.
Basically, the use of '-iye/-ia' is the same as the the use of '-land' suffix in country names like
Ire(Eire)-land, Po(le)-land, Eng(Anglo)-land and so on and so on.
Many would remember the country Czechoslovak-ia which changed it's name to Czech Republic and a few years ago changed that to Czechia (that is Czech-ia).
The Latin suffix -ia probably originates from Turkish -iye as Turkish been over 10,000 years is much older than Latin which is around 1300 years old.
Spelled in different languages in different ways to phonetically resemble (to sound like) 'Türkiye'
we got various spellings like;
Turq-uía (in Spanish),
Turch-ia (in Italian),
Turq-uie (in French)
Turk-ei (in German)
Turk-ey (in English)
Mind you this was way before the animal we currently know as turkey was found by the europeans when they explored the north americas. The bird was first sent to europe from north americas in the year 1519, so up until that point there was no bird named turkey....
...they came across the bird and thought it was a specie of the fowl/chicken they had been buying from the country of Turkiye at the time, so they named the bird 'Turkey Fowl' to define 'Turkish Chicken'...
....just like how a dog breed is known as German Shepherd (because it's from Germany), American Bulldog, British Terrier, Greek Harehound etc etc.
In time you don't get to call the harehound simply as Greek or you don't call the terrier Britirsh, or shepherd as simply German,
but in time the Turkish Fowl started to be called just 'Turkey' and later 'turkey', and this went on for hundreds of years.
Now in modern times, this caused confusion, especially when we have people across the world unable to point to their own country on an atlas.
Basically we didn't change the name of our country, we changed the mistake made in the English language. : )
So, there's some tid bit information for you to have a great day, if you read upto this point you have a great night too, ohh just have a wonderfull life. : )
Best wishes. ;)
Welcome to Turkey Beno! You can find thyssen esclators in m2 metro line and you can find 5 thyssen lifts in metrocity shopping mall and also you can find strange otis indicators in Turkey.
Every 15 seconds? Impressive! That said I've not been to Istanbul yet... (I have been to Turkey once in 2015 but just as a day trip to Bodrum from the Greek islsnd of Kos)
Very interessant video! Thanks Beno
woah, you came to Türkiye!
because I live in capital Ankara I only got to experience the metrobus system 4 times (all in a single trip to İstanbul) but it sure was incredible how frequent the buses were. though even _that_ isn't enough with how fuckin overpopulated İstanbul is; I often see images of it get overwhelmed especially in rush hours.
As great as the system it is, I guess the frequent overcrowding means that it's time to convert Istanbul Metrobus into a tram or even a metro line...
i really don't know, feels like too many people too little space no matter what solution one tries to come up with.
@@gabrielstravels I am not sure if converting it into a metro line would increase capacity. There is already a huge number of buses which travel with very fast acceleration, and are very frequent. Not much more can be done, and the stations don't have any room to be expanded, due to it running in the middle of a dual carriageway. What Istanbul desperately needs is a new metro line that crosses between Europe and Asia. The metro system is divided into two halves in the most awkward inconvenient way.
@@benoliftsThere actually is one called Marmaray however it's too slow. Currently an express metro line called M34 Hızray is in the works, it will also make transiting to other metro lines easier.
Sadly it's still waiting approval from the central government despite the municipality being pretty much ready to begin construction.
Don't you love
trains, trams, aren't they all beautiful :)
come take a ride! (at folder 2, look my way)
Fantastic. We most likely will never get anything as good as that anywhere here in the UK. The Cambridge and Luton ones looked great though. Buses should have priority. Especially with trying to be more environmentally friendly, and especially with electric ones.
There's one guided busway i don't know if you considered in the UK (i understand about the times at the moment with GoNorthWest having just taken over it from First) which is the Manchester to Atherton/Leigh guided busway V1/2? The Guided part starts in Ellenbrook, then goes to a P&R and small bus interchange where the 2 routes divide then one continues on the guided route to Leigh and the other goes to Atherton. Yes, it does have to cross junctions but it doesn't have to wait very long as its prioritised, but if you time it right, its a decent service into Manchester. This service is there because Leigh doesn't have a tram, or even a train service since the Beeching cuts in the 60s
I have been on this busway (although I was surfing the buses rather than riding inside them). It is an interesting busway, but is not anywhere near as good as Istanbul. The buses are very infrequent. For the general public to see these busway systems as something they would prefer to travel on than their own car, the system has to show that it is as good as a railway. All of the busways in the UK fail to do this. They need to run buses as often as the London underground runs trains. Also the Leigh busway suddenly ends in the middle of nowhere. Yet again another example of a busway that has been cut back to the point where it fails to achieve what it is designed to do. It should have been built to run the entire way from Leigh to Manchester, including bridges, tunnels, and large concrete structures to bypass over roads into the center of Manchester, which means that buildings would have to be knocked down that are in its way. Other countries are able to build these transport infrastructure projects properly, but the UK seems to be unable to nowadays.
As someone living in Istanbul, the roads are very trembling. Especially the newly built ones. Sometimes they are very crowded.
3:16 Metrobus is actually the company who runs the busway - the busway name is Fastway. I live near Crawley (when not at uni) and Fastway is yeah, just a typical UK bus service but improved
4:05 I could say the same for Bristol Metrobus - hell, only their m2 route (City Centre - Long Ashton P&R) actually has a short section of guided busways, the other routes are just normal buses with buy before you board ticketing and dual door buses
There is two diffrent mercedes busses one is mercedes capacity and the other one is mercedes conecto g
Welcome to my home country Turkey Beno 🙂
Metrobuses are sometimes very busy, but it is a good system.
It is a cheap alternative to a proper tram or suburban railway system
Trams would struggle with the hills of Istanbul. That's another reason why the diesel/hybrid buses were chosen.
How do they have so many buses and divers just for 1 route?? That’s crazy, every 20 seconds a bus!
And a lot of the buses are so crowded that it is standing room only
@@benolifts wtf
@@d947think about it like a normal tram line or underground route during peak hours that service is needed
actually its the most used public transport line in Istanbul with around a million daily users, there is a 400k difference between metrobus and most used metro line, m2, its more used than suburban rail aswell, and thats not because the rail network is small its actually pretty large with well over 400km of tracks its just that metrobus is so succesfull. its a great example of what brt os capable if its done well
roses are red, violets are blue,
trains, trams and buses come in all sorts of hue ;)
my playlist #2 is about transportaion
Well at least it’s better than other busway including in Cambridge and Luton-Dunstable. Maybe more busways would be needed in bigger cities and towns.
That’s not the most frequent bus though. 345K in Beijing in China has a normal 5 buses per minute frequency during the workday rush hour. They even designed a special platform to make sure a bus can be fully filled within 18 seconds.
yoooo welcome on our country man
Victoria line busway
6:15 The busway also runs Phileas bendy buses, but apparently they are really unreliable and is hard to find one in service
Back when the metrobus line first came into operation, Phileas buses were purchased to run exclusively for this service. However, they were terrible at handling the hilly route (I mean Istanbul isn't Eindhoven, lol). Unreliability issues made them almost inoperable, not mentioning some buses catching fire out of nowhere. They were then replaced by the Mercedes Capacity model.
Today, all of the Phileases survived are getting rusty in the junkyard unfortunately.
All of the Phileas buses are rotting away in a scrapyard. They were sluggish, couldn't climb hills, notoriously unreliable and spare parts are harder to find than gold in a haystack. So they ultimately scrapped all the buses into a corner, and lost millions of Euro as a result. A big FUCK YOUR TAX MONEY from the municipality.
Istanbul is Europes Biggest/Largest City it’s a Mega city it’s Huge Massive the population is like 20 Million people that is why istanbul is currently Constructing 11 New underground Metro lines to stop traffic congestion
Reece Martin would go crazy over this busway.
Who is that?
@@benolifts He is a transit RUclipsr who talks about various transit and how to improve it in cities. Here is his channel: youtube.com/@RMTransit
@@benolifts RMtransit, a youtuber who looks at unique and interesting transport systems.
RM Transit. Search him on RUclips.
I have watched a few of his videos. I disagree with a lot of his opinions. He calls the VAL a gadgetbahn and claims that a regular metro would be better. I strongly disagree with this. The VAL is one of the best designed metros ever invented and outperforms the majority of other metros, and works seamlessly and perfectly. While it might propriety, which means that 3rd party companies can't work on it fully, however it means that Siemens is able to perfect every aspect of it down to the tiniest details which makes it work to perfection.
You finally made it to Turkey!
thanks to Wizzz
The crawley busway is actually called the 'fastway' and yeah it makes no sense even having it when the route 100 dosent even touch the guided busway or really any bus lanes that other buses don't use and you will also notice that once the 100 and 20 leave sussex and go into surrey apart from the fastway sign on the buses and just 3 bus stops in horley with a fastway poster on them there is no sign of a busway.
Electric autonomous metrobuses will come soon, currently in development.
this could be a great trolley bus system
6:50 bus sounds like a distorted version of the Alexander Dennis 200EV BYD from London
Tbh - It sounds like a Skoda trolleybus but with a diesel engine...
That is an Akia bi articulated bus which had been manifactured in Bursa,Turkiye.
I can't choose between this and the Leigh guided busway
It's not a bus actually. It's a metrobus. And metrobuses are one of the most busy transportation ways on the Istanbul so a metrobus in every 15 seconds actually makes sence.
You should ride marmaray 😃
Sick engine bro
Once you are in Turkey, take a visit to Greece!!!
He's been to Athens! You can find videos of Athens from his channel
Why did they choose to drive on the left? How does left hand traffic merge with right had traffic on the bridge? Won’t the headlights blind oncoming traffic?
It has island platforms on a lot of the route, so they run the buses on the other side
@@benolifts ah yeah of course to maximise the limited space. Bit of a mind fuck
And when it merges with the cars for the bridge, the buses switch sides first
yeah, this was the best solution with LHD buses which have doors on the right
Ive often wondered what would happen if we made our railways into bus only roads and put 100 mph busses on them instead of trains. Would it be cheaper with better services? Only joking!!as I like trains.
What’s interesting is rather than running every 20 secs if they could run double deckers increases profit.
The boarding times of double deckers is too slow. The route couldn't run with the capacity needed with slow boarding. 4 door bendy buses are very fast to board with all door boarding.
@@benoliftsAs much as I love double deckers for its scenery, this is exactly why bendy buses need to return to UK cities! The amount of dwell time on British buses especially outside London is pathetic with buses almost only having one door for entry and exit...
@@gabrielstravels woah that must really suck, even regular buses usually have three doors!
@@akyraisconfused Of course! Here in Italy it is the norm for city buses to have three doors at least, and that's on 12m long rigid single deckers we're talking about!
@@gabrielstravels 12 meter buses struggle in the UK. There is so much risk of tail strike the drivers have to drive them slowly. The UK's roads are very problematic in places.
i live in turkish
Nice video🎉🎉🎉
8:51 - that's not a bus, and it's on the busway...
It is a maintenance van for the busway. At least it isn't some ordinary car given vip status like on some busways
Hey Austin this is guys
that busway is backwards from normal traffic.
It is because the route was designed for Phileas buses that had doors on both sides. Then, they were replaced by Mercedes capacity (regular lefthand drive buses) due to their lack of power and severe unreliability issues. Thus, the busway is backwards, lol. Bad planning from the municipality I guess...
didnt age well did it
First
Arriva
Once you are in Turkey, take a visit to Greece!!!