Bustitution

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The term "bustitution" is a neologism sometimes used to describe the practice of replacing train service, whether street railways (light rail or tram/streetcar systems) or full-size railway systems, with a bus service, either on a temporary or permanent basis. The word is a portmanteau of the words "bus" and "substitution".^[1]

[edit] Overview

It has sometimes been used to describe the dismantling of the street railway systems of many cities in North America in the mid-20th century. The term is usually used in a somewhat derogatory sense and, when used, it usually means that a full conversion (rather than just a reduction) has taken place.

The term is in use in the United Kingdom to describe the replacement of full-sized train service by buses. Sometimes, in this case, the replacement is temporary and is caused by maintenance work or train failure. It is also used to describe the closing of lightly-used services and replacement by a bus service^[2].

During the Beeching era in the 1960s, bus substitution was an official policy for replacing train services on closed lines. This policy was largely unsuccessful however, as the bus services were usually far slower than the train services they replaced, causing many passengers to give up on public transport altogether^[3].

A similar concept in some ways is motorization, though that more broadly refers to the rise of the automobile as well as bus transportation.