In May, ITDP organized a series of trainings for the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Lanzhou and Guangzhou on bus rapid transit (BRT). The trainings were held over a three-day workshop and attended by ADB staff and government representatives from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Dhaka, Bangladesh; and Ji’an, Jiangxi province, China.

This was the second time that ITDP China has organized such a training; the first was last year. ADB staff received technical briefings from ITDP and visited the best practice sites of the Lanzhou BRT and Guangzhou’s BRT. In Guangzhou, they also visited the excellent bike sharing system, which is integrated along the BRT corridor. In addition, they visited Guangzhou’s best practice in Transit-oriented Development, the Liuyun Xiaoqu neighborhood, as well as the beautiful Donghaochong greenway project.

The Asian Development Bank has been an important partner for ITDP by supporting and financing the implementation of new, high-quality BRT systems in cities across Asia. The Lanzhou BRT, which opened in January, is their first BRT project to be implemented. Many of the cities represented by the ADB at this training were previously doubtful that BRT could deliver the service and capacity that they expected, but after the training, the group said they had now gained the confidence, inspiration and knowledge to implement BRT in their cities. Key ADB participants called it “the best training we had ever had”. The senior Mongolian delegation said that “seeing is believing”.

The Lanzhou portion of the training was covered by Lanzhou TV, and features interviews with Xiaomei Duan and Ma Wenxuan of ITDP China, as well as Ki-Joon Kim and Lloyd Wright of the ADB. The Gansu Morning Newspaper also published an article on the training.