The Nanning BRT commenced construction on 28 December 2015, with a ceremony at Changhong-Cuizhu Lukou in the morning to mark the occasion. Vice Mayor Mr. Qin Weiguo, Transportation Bureau Chief Engineer Mr. Liang Zhanfan, and CEO of Baima Bus Company Ms. Liu Yi attended the opening ceremony and delivered speeches. Nanning is the capital of Guangxi Province in southern China.

The phase 1 Nanning BRT corridor runs 11km with 17 stations from the downtown Nanning Railway Station to the newly opened high speed railway station, Nanning East Station. The cost of construction will be around 930 million yuan (US$141 million). Nanning's BRT corridor has quite high public transport volumes, with the highest current screenline count of passenger throughput at Wenhuagong showing around nearly 7,000 bus pessengers per hour in two directions. Most of the stations use the "directional" station successfully used in Yichang. As in Yichang, GMEDRI and ITDP are leading the BRT design in Nanning, with ITDP's input focused on surveys and demand analysis, operational design, station configuration, impact analysis, and transit-oriented development along the BRT corridor.

Nanning has the potential to be a 'gold standard' BRT system, and would be the third such system in Asia after Guangzhou and Yichang. In addition, Nanning will be China's first public private partnership (PPP) BRT project. After a lengthy negotation the Nanning City Government signed a PPP contract for the BRT project on 23 December 2015. According to the PPT contract, 10% of the construction cost will be invested by the government and 90% will be invested by private capital. Government finance will come from the Nanning Public Transportation Company and the private finance will be from a joint venture between Guangzhou Yufuhang Baima Investment Company and the 2nd Construction Company from China Construction 8th Bureau. These three parties will set up a project company and this project company will in charge of investment, construction, operation and transfer of the system. The government will conduct a performance review in a certain time and give the project company a service fee each year according to its review results. Official information on the PPP scheme is provided at here.

Media coverage of the opening can be seenhere in Guangxi Newsandin Soufangand other media.

Nanning official delegations visited the Yichang BRT in 2015 and visited the Guangzhou BRT five times between 2011-2015,with these visits playing a crucial role in convincing the city to proceed with a high capacity BRT system.

The problems that the BRT is designed to address in Nanning are severe, with slow bus speeds and very poor conditions for bus passengers especially in the downtown during peak hours. Average peak hour bus speeds in many areas of the city center are less than 10km/hr; barely faster than walking speeds. Bus congestion in turn has adverse impacts on traffic and on the very high e-bike volumes in Nanning.

ITDP carried out a round of impact analysis surveys in Nanning during December 2015 as a first set of baseline surveys that will later be used to measure the impacts of the Nanning BRT.