A Dedicated Bus Platform in Castellón Spain

The metropolitan area of the city of Castellón, situated East of Spain at the Mediterranean coast, has a network of dedicated bus platforms, which was conceived with two main purposes: to enhance public transport and to structure urban development. As a part of this network, a bus platform, 3.9 km long, was constructed in 2013. It is a section of Line 1, which connects the Port of Castellón to the city center. Buses are optically guided. Therefore all the vehicles follow the same path. This channelization effect was considered when designing the thickness of the pavement. The platform is 7 m wide. It has a jointed plain concrete pavement, 25 cm thick, placed on an existing asphalt concrete pavement in service since a number of years. Some centimetres of asphalt concrete were milled to accommodate the thickness of the concrete pavement to the levels of the adjacent areas. A characteristic compressive strength of 4.5 MPa at 28 days was specified for concrete. Since the pavement was built by half widths, the only longitudinal joint is the construction one between them. It is provided with tie bars to avoid excessive opening. Transverse joints were sawn, at a spacing of 4 m at most. The pavement was finished with a topping of resin mortar.