What does the letter "A" on the lane of the roadway mean?

Explanation

A special lane designated for the movement of public-transport vehicles.

The letter "A" painted in white on the carriageway in the picture is a dedicated marking with a fixed meaning: this traffic lane is reserved for public-transport vehicles. The corresponding blue sign is usually fitted above that lane or beside the road as well, to mark the start of the zone.

By a public-transport vehicle is meant one that carries passengers on a fixed route with designated stops: a route bus, a trolleybus, a fixed-route minibus. A private car, a taxi and a tour bus do not fall within this definition.

The safety reason for separating this flow is the difference in movement pattern: a public-transport vehicle stops at the right-hand verge every few hundred metres and pulls away again. If these stops are mixed into the through traffic, rear-end impacts increase and passengers alight in the gap between the bus and moving cars — the most dangerous possible situation for a pedestrian.

Worth memorising: not every letter or number you see on the asphalt is a road number. In the exam, "A" always refers to the dedicated public-transport lane and has nothing to do with licence categories.

• A road number appears on roadside signs and in the form of a route code, not as a single letter on the surface of the carriageway. • Licence category "A" relates to motorcycles, and no dedicated traffic lane with a marking on the asphalt is defined for licence categories.

Sources and content coverage · Report a content error