Lignes d'Azur - The Nice Tramway

Lignes d'Azur is actually the name of the municipal public transport undertaking throughout the Nice area.  It currently only has one tram line, through the city of Nice, alongside urban and inter-urban bus services.

The Nice Tramway serves the heart of the city's shopping centre, Avenue Jean Medicin.

Nice Tramway is operated by a fleet of five-section domestically built Alstom Citadis trams.

Clear maps showing tram lines and local buses are at each tram stop.

Real time information is at every stop.  I'm not sure of there's such a thing as a Tram court amongst the seemingly homogeneous fleet of Alston Citadis.

I do like a simple ticketing system.  Ticket choices are a single ('solo'), 10-trip carnet ('multi'), a one day or 7 day pass, or a ticket which includes the bus connection to Nice Airport, the latter attracting something of a price premium q.v.

And even better when the ticket machines looks exactly like the printed fare information.  Very simple to use.

Trams have next stop displays on board: like the ticketing these are simple and clear to understand.

As the Tramway rounds Promenade du Paillon the tram's track are sunk in to grass.  I think this helps a lot with the post-construction aesthetics of tramways. 

Information booth in central Nice about the planned extensions ti Nice Tramway.  Sadly, closed at the time of my nocturnal passing.

The bus service between Nice centre-ville and the Airport is operated by Mercedes Citaros as routes 98 and 99.  These two routes command a considerable fare premium, with a single fare of 6 euros, compared to 1.5 euros on other local buses. However the local buses are only a short walk from Terminal 1 on Promenade des Anglais.  It remains to be seen which pricing model the new tram adopts.

One final gratuitous tram shot.

MyCiti - Cape Town's BRT

In the summer of 2017 I took advantage of a cheap air fare to visit South Africa for the first time.  I included Cape Town on my travels, and as usual, sought to use local public transport to get around.  Prior to my arrival I was aware Cape Town had two separate bus networks, but wasn’t aware of the newer network’s adoption of some of the more interesting elements of bus rapid transit.  Having never been to Curitiba or Bogota it was my first time seeing ‘proper’ platform boarding on a bus.  I didn't have time for an extensive ride around the MyCiti system, but here's a few images from the travels I did make.

The Airport Station looks like the entrance to a metro system: the physical attributes and gate line do not suggest a bus-based service, or even light rail (which typically has open platforms too).

Airport services are in the hands of rigid Volvo B7Ls.  This one is at the down town 'Civic Centre' bus station,

Some of the MyCiti vehicles have two third height doors and a ramp that folds out which also forms the bottom third of the door.

Some MyCiti services are operated by articulated Scania buses.  Most of the buses on MyCiti were constructed locally - I presume using chassis imported from Europe mated with a locally built body.

Boarding a MyCiti bus in the Civic Centre bus station.

On some buses the ramp folds down from inside the bus.  This is the Airport service, numbered A01.

The down town Civic Centre bus station has many boarding gates.

Entry to most of the MyCiti stations is via ticket gates.  There is a contactless smart card system: even single tickets from the airport are issued on a solid plastic smart card (rather than the paper tickets with a chip inside which some systems use, such as Glasgow Subway).  I believe the idea is that such tickets should be handed back and re-used, although the gates do not collect them automatically.  Beijing Subway uses a similar system for single tickets, where it is a smart card on entry but has to be inserted in to the gate for (re-use) on exit.

A down town Cape Town MyCiti station, with off-side boarding on a central island platform, and again showing ticket gates in use.

View of a MyCiti station from the outside.

Feeder services to MyCiti are also provided using locally built Optare Solo buses.  These have an offside door within the low floor area which necessitates the interchange stations to have two platforms: one at the Solo height and one for the high-floor height doors on the main MyCiti service buses.

Connecting buses at the Civic Centre interchange.  The rear vehicle is not in service as it is parked at a high floor platform.  The front two buses are at platforms which are commensurate with the height of the low floor section of the bus.

The connecting services also use conventional bus stops, such as this one at the V&A Waterfront.