TCRP report 155 provides guidelines and descriptions for the design of various common types of light rail transit (LRT) track. The track structure types include ballasted track, direct fixation ("ballastless") track, and embedded track. The report considers the characteristics and interfaces of vehicle wheels and rail, tracks and wheel gauges, rail sections, alignments, speeds, and track moduli. The report includes chapters on vehicles, alignment, track structures, track components, special track work, aerial structures/bridges, corrosion control, noise and vibration, signals, traction power, and the integration of LRT track into urban streets.

Introduction -- Planning framework -- Estimating BRT ridership -- Component features, costs, and impacts -- System packaging, integration, and assessment -- Land development guidelines.

This report was prepared for policy makers searching for ways to boost public transit use in U.S. urban areas and wishing to know what can be learned from the experiences of Canada and Western Europe. Describes the differences in public transit use among U.S., Canadian, and Western European cities; identifies those factors, from urban form to automobile usage, that have contributed to these differences; and offers hypotheses about the reasons for these differences--from historical, demographic, and economic conditions to specific public policies, such as automobile taxation and urban land use regulation.

Accompanying CD-ROM contains full text of the manual, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, and a library of related documents.

Proceedings of the International Symposium on Highway Capacity, Karlsruhe, Germany, July 1991. Papers range widely from driving behavior and pedestrian to the numerical value of freeway capacity and transit capacity.