Benelux
With a rapidly-growing population, the Belgian capital has experienced a surge in public transport usage in recent years which shows little sign of abating. Keith Barrow looks at how the city’s transport authority Stib is expanding the urban rail network to meet unprecedented levels of demand.
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Brussels builds urb T
HE sustained growth in public transport usage in Brussels in recent years has mirrored a
rapid increase in the city’s population, which swelled from 960,000 in 2000 to 1.14 million in 2012 and is expected to reach 1.31 million this year. Brussels Transport Company (Stib) carried 348.8 million passengers on its buses, trams, and metro trains in 2012, with trams accounting for 35% of journeys and the metro 38%. According to the company’s projections the upward trend is set to continue with ridership rising to 400 million by 2016 and 550 million by 2025. Stib already appears well-positioned
to meet the growth challenge with one of Europe’s largest tram networks, covering 203km (including pre-metro lines), and a 40km metro network, but traffic has increased to such an extent in recent years that parts of the system are approaching saturation point. This means the priority for the
remainder of this decade will be building more capacity into the network, extending the reach of tram and metro lines while relieving the bottlenecks in the existing system. Under Stib’s 2013- 2017 public service obligation contract, which was agreed with the Brussels- Capital regional government last
IRJ January 2014
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