Xiamen BRT

I had the chance to visit Xiamen in October 2025. China continues to inspire and impress me on every visit, not because everything is perfect, but because the pace, ambition, and willingness to build infrastructure at scale are impossible to ignore.

Xiamen is a coastal city of about five million people in Fujian Province. Before it built a metro line, it opened a bus rapid transit network, and much of it is elevated. Xiamen’s BRT went into service in August 2008 and is widely recognized as China’s first elevated BRT system. Today it covers more than 60 kilometers with dozens of stations.

(All photos are my own.)

A viaduct that does not roar

Most of the BRT lives on a dedicated elevated roadway above existing arterials. At street level, what surprised me most was how quiet it is. The viaduct was mostly installed with noise barriers, and vegetation stretches along the structure as well. Most importantly, the buses are modern and electric.

Built before the metro, but designed like one

BRT Data reports that the initial 48.9 kilometers of Xiamen’s BRT cost about 10 billion yuan to build, with roughly 35 kilometers of that elevated. By contrast, Metro Line 1 alone cost about 20.39 billion yuan for 30.3 kilometers of track.

The BRT was engineered to high standards: dedicated right-of-way, platform fare control, level boarding, and enclosed stations. You pay before boarding. Riders tap a card or buy a ticket, then pass through faregates at the station entrance instead of paying on the bus. Platforms are built to the level of the bus, so you get true level boarding. Also, many stations have platform screen doors for buses that align exactly with the vehicle doors and open only when a bus is docked. There is usually clearance for buses to pass around other buses which have stopped at the stations.

Stations as full mixed-use buildings

One of the real standouts is station design. Some of the BRT stations were developed as full, mixed-use buildings. In several locations I visited, there were residential buildings literally on top of or immediately attached to station structures, with supermarkets and other everyday retail at ground level. Inside the paid area, some stations had kiosks and small shops tucked into mezzanines.

The mezzanines have plenty of circulation space, ticketing machines, and clearly organized signage. Multiple exits drop riders to each side of the arterial below. Wayfinding is straightforward even if you do not read Chinese.

Electric buses and charging inside elevated depots

Operationally, Xiamen has leaned hard into electric buses. Charging is handled at terminals and depots. Large depots around the city house banks of high power chargers. Buses also can come off the elevated busway via dedicated off-ramps.

Off the BRT corridor, some street-running buses are smaller and scaled to tighter streets and lower ridership, but most vehicles were electric, reflecting how common electrified bus fleets have become in China.

At-grade segments and network reach

The system is not elevated from end to end. The BRT also runs at grade in the median of wide roads, still in fully dedicated lanes and still making use of enclosed stations and off-board fare payment.

Ideally there would be free transfers between the BRT and metro, but in Xiamen, they are fare-controlled as separate networks. Transfers between them generally require exiting one system and paying again to enter the other, even when the stations are physically close or connected by passageways.

Airport stations and the urban edge

One of the most memorable parts of the system is at the airport. The BRT connects to Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport. On one side, you step into the usual airport world. On the other side, at least as of Fall 2025, you can walk out into an area with dirt paths and open land, which I would be surprised to see undeveloped for very long.

Xiamen is building a new airport, and the BRT may one day be replaced with metro lines. Today, Xiamen has three metro lines totaling almost 100 kilometers, with more under construction. Line 1 opened in 2017 and connects the island to mainland districts and Xiamen North Railway Station. Lines 2 and 3 followed in 2019 and 2021. Xiamen is also building a new airport well outside this area.

What Xiamen proves

Standing on those platforms in October 2025, it was impossible not to think about New York and where something like this might make sense back home. One place kept coming to mind: Staten Island’s North Shore. The old railway right-of-way is still there, and the idea of building a real elevated BRT along it feels practical. Buses from the rest of Staten Island could run locally through neighborhoods, then speed up once they reach the North Shore elevated corridor. By concentrating buses on a dedicated right-of-way, it can also reduce congestion on streets and make regular traffic more predictable.

Would it look like Xiamen today? Of course not. But it is easy to imagine what could grow around something like this at scale: housing, shops, waterfront activity. And just as important, stronger connections to the working waterfront and industrial areas that still power the borough.

Maybe that is idealistic. But walking through Xiamen, it felt obvious that cities become what they build. Not what they promise. Not what they debate. But what they actually put into the ground.

Bonus: There are elevated bikeways underneath some sections of the BRT!

Stay tuned…