Opening of high-tech bus system to be delayed

Tuesday, March 9, 2004 | 9:21 a.m.

The Metropolitan Area Express, a mass-transit hybrid of rail and traditional bus systems, will not be ready to run March 15 as hoped, Regional Transportation Commission officials said Monday.

The RTC wanted to bring the high-tech, $19 million bus system into service this month, but the bus system's software needs more testing, RTC Deputy General Manager Curtis Myles said. The system, 85 percent of which is funded by the federal government, would use a European-built bus and subway-like "stations" to provide service from downtown Las Vegas to Nellis Air Force Base.

"We are testing some of the more intricate, technologically advanced parts of the system now," Myles said.

One important component is to ensure that the boxes at the stations selling the tickets for the system can keep credit card information protected, he said.

Other elements include the optical guidance system that drivers would use to pull the 60-foot buses close to the station platforms on the curbs, he said.

"When you put together these high-tech systems, there is always some software here and there that doesn't do exactly what it was supposed to do," he said.

The system could be running in April, but will have to go through "pretty rigorous" testing first, Myles said.

A one-way ticket would cost $1.25, the same as regular bus service. Riders also could buy monthly passes or other options at the ticket-vending machines planned for the stations.

He said the delay is not connected in any way to delays in getting the Las Vegas monorail running. Originally slated to come into service in January, the Las Vegas Monorail Co. then said it would start running in March.

However, Clark County inspection officials say the earliest the monorail could start running is April with the full regimen of testing planned for the sleek new transit system.

Officials of Las Vegas Monorail Co. and Transit Systems Management, the monorail company's for-profit partner and contracted system operator, as well as Bombardier Transportation, the Canadian company building the system, all say they do not have a firm date for launching the monorail.