UBC Exchange at the University of British Columbia in Canada
Tampere Bus Station in Ratina, Tampere, Finland

A bus station or a bus interchange is a structure where city buses or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. While the term bus depot can also be used to refer to a bus station, it can also refer to a bus garage. A bus station is larger than a bus stop, which is usually simply a place on the roadside, where buses can stop. It may be intended as a terminal station for a number of routes, or as a transfer station where the routes continue.

Bus station platforms may be assigned to fixed bus lines, or variable in combination with a dynamic passenger information system.[1] The latter requires fewer platforms, but does not provide consistent locations for passengers.

Largest bus stations

Kilambakkam bus terminus in Chennai is spread over an area of 358,200 square metres (88.52 acres), making it the largest bus station in the world.[2][3]

Woodlands Bus Interchange in Singapore

The Woodlands Bus Interchange in Singapore is one of the busiest bus interchanges in the world, handling up to 400,000 passengers daily across 42 bus services.[4][5] Other Singaporean bus interchanges such as Bedok Bus Interchange, Tampines Bus Interchange and Yishun Bus Interchange handle similar number of passengers daily.

The largest underground bus station in Europe is Kamppi Centre in Helsinki, Finland completed in 2006. The terminal cost 100 million Euro to complete and took 3 years to design and build. Today, the bus terminal, which covers 25,000 square meters, is the busiest bus terminal in Finland. Every day, the terminal has around 700 bus departures, transporting approximately 170,000 passengers.[6]

Preston Bus Station in Preston, England, built in 1969 and later heritage-listed, was described in 2014 as "depending on how you measure it, the largest bus station in the world, the second-biggest in Europe, and the longest in Europe".[7] It was fully refurbished in 2018.[8]

The largest bus terminal in North America is the Port Authority Bus Terminal located in New York City.[citation needed] The terminal is located in Midtown at 625 Eighth Avenue between 40th Street and 42nd Street, one block east of the Lincoln Tunnel and one block west of Times Square. The terminal is the largest in the Western Hemisphere and the busiest in the world by volume of traffic, serving about 8,000 buses and 225,000 people on an average weekday and more than 65 million people a year.[citation needed] It has 223 gates. It operates intercity bus routes all over the United States and some routes with international destinations, mostly in Canada, and mostly operated by Greyhound Lines.[citation needed]

The largest bus terminal in the southern hemisphere is the Tietê Bus Terminal located in São Paulo, Brazil.[9] It is also the 2nd busiest in the world, serving about 90,000 people per weekday in 300 bus lines on its 89 platforms (72 for boarding and 17 for deboarding), with services to over 1,000 cities over the country and South America.[10] The terminal is also linked to Portuguesa-Tietê, an adjacent metro station.

See also

References

Look up bus station or stand in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bus stations.
  1. ^ "New hightech bus station in Amstelveen opened". Vialis. 2009-10-13. Archived from the original on 2012-09-17. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  2. ^ Dorairaj, S. (28 December 2005). "Koyambedu bus terminus gets ISO certification". The Hindu. Chennai. Archived from the original on 5 July 2006. Retrieved 16 Oct 2011.
  3. ^ Sharma, Reethu (23 August 2014). "Chennai turns 375: Things you should know about 'Gateway to South India'". One India. Chennai. Retrieved 31 December 2021.
  4. ^ See list of bus interchanges in Singapore by number of services
  5. ^ Khew, Carolyn (13 March 2016). "Bus interchange rolls out free buggy rides and more". The Straits Times. Singapore. Retrieved 15 Jun 2019.
  6. ^ "Kamppi –The Helsinki Underground Bus Terminal". Xtralis. Archived from the original (pdf) on 2009-09-15. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  7. ^ Baker, Martin (4 January 2014). "Love, hate and concrete: The battle for Preston Bus Station". The Independent. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  8. ^ Newsroom, The (10 July 2018). "Preston bus station's grand reopening after £19m facelift". Lancashire Evening Post. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  9. ^ "Conheça São Paulo" (in Brazilian Portuguese). Folha de S. Paulo. 2006-01-23. Retrieved 2022-01-29.
  10. ^ "Sobre o Terminal". Terminal Rodoviário do Tietê (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 2022-01-29.
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