Adelaide O-Bahn

The Adelaide O-Bahn is the world's fastest guided busway and at 12 kilometres, the world's longest. It originally opened in 1986 as a part of the Adelaide Metro in South Australia, shuttling over seven million passengers back and forth a year. The project cost around AU$98m. It takes roughly 20 minutes to travel the length of the busway. The busway runs from the Adelaide CBD to Tea Tree Plaza, a shopping centre in Tea Tree Gully and traces through the Linear Park that runs from Walkerville to Modbury .

The technology behind the O-Bahn is remarkably simple and flexible. Specially modified buses with guide-wheels attached to the steering arms are used to travel on the O-Bahn, which enter by aligning the bus with the track which is made of concrete.

The buses are driven normally on ordinary streets. This technology allows the bus to travel at up to a speed of 100km/h. The system is capable of moving 18,000 people an hour in each direction. The O-Bahn consists of 5,800 sleepers, 5,600 pylons drilled to a depth of 3 metres, 4,200 track pieces, 25 bridges, 8 pedestrian overpasses and a 60 metre-long tunnel.

The O-Bahn is serviced by three stations, the Klemzig Station , Paradise Interchange and Tea Tree Plaza Interchange. Service frequency ranges from 1 to 3 minutes from Monday to Friday in peak periods, every 5 minutes in other times and from 12 to 15 minutes on weekends, public holidays and after 6pm.

There is a current proposal to implement an O-Bahn in the Southern suburbs of Adelaide, rather than extending the rail system. This was proposed by the former State Transport Minister, Dorothy Kotz , but has not had a lot of favour among the current Labor government which is focusing on the development of light rail in the inner city. There are also suggestions about extending the current O-Bahn to Golden Grove.