01519866

Component

https://doi.org/10.3141/2418-04

Bus rapid transit (BRT) has become an efficient mode of public transportation to mitigate urban traffic congestion. Research on improving the performance of BRT systems is still in the early stages, despite booming growth of BRT projects. In some busy BRT systems, the challenge is to assign multiple substops reasonably and accurately to bus routes at the station. Bus queuing at the station is the major cause of traffic congestion in the Guangzhou, China, BRT (GBRT) system, which is the highest volume BRT system in Asia. To reduce queuing at the station and enhance the mobility of BRT buses, this study proposed a combinatorial optimization model (BCOM) to assign multiple substops to bus routes at the same station. The objective of the proposed method was to minimize the probability of bus queuing at BRT stations. The study used a novel genetic algorithm to obtain suboptimal solutions of the BCOM. Operating data from the GBRT system were analyzed, and it was found that the BRT bus arrival rate and dwell time obeyed a Poisson distribution and negative exponential distribution, respectively. A simulation tool for the GBRT system, based on VISSIM, was developed to evaluate the proposed solution. The simulation and application results demonstrated that the proposed solution could decrease bus queuing length effectively and could reduce bus dwell time and travel time and the service saturation of substops simultaneously. This study provides a useful and practical solution to improve the performance and operation of BRT systems and other traditional bus systems.

01557108

14-2145

English

pp 30–38

2014

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

9780309295635

Print

Figures (5) ; References (18) ; Tables (4)

Bus rapid transit; Bus routes; Bus terminals; Bus transit operations; Genetic algorithms; On time performance; Optimization; Simulation; Traffic queuing

Guangzhou (China)

Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 27 2014 2:45PM

• All Aboard at All Doors: Route Selection and Running-Time Savings Estimation for Multiscenario All-Door Bus Boarding
• Buses with High Level of Service in Nantes, France: Characteristics and Results of the BusWay Compared with Light Rail Transit
• Evaluation of Presignals at Oversaturated Signalized Intersections
• Examining the Characteristics of Intercity Bus Passengers in Michigan
• Factors Contributing to Bus Lane Obstruction and Usage in New York City: Does Design Matter?
• Flex Scheduling for Bus Arrival Time Prediction
• Jobs-Housing Balance of Bus Commuters in Beijing: Exploration with Large-Scale Synthesized Smart Card Data
• Modeling Bus Dwell Time with Decision Tree–Based Methods
• Operational Comparison of Transit Signal Priority Strategies
• Optimal Connected Urban Bus Network of Priority Lanes
• Quantifying the Effects of Modal Conflicts on Transit Reliability
• Regulating Intercity Bus Stops in New York City
• Transit Signal Priority with Connected Vehicle Technology
• User Behavior in Multiroute Bus Corridors: Analysis by a Web-Based Survey