01046330

Component

The school bus is a major transportation mode for students to attend schools, but its unexpected delay may constitute a major source of inconvenience for students and their parents. Accordingly, the provision of timely and reliable information on the expected arrivals of school buses would be of great benefit to them. This study develops an Expected Time of Arrival (ETA) model for school buses. The developed model predicts the arrival time from the input of two categories: the last several days’ historical data and the current day’s operational conditions. An operational strategy is additionally incorporated into the model to reduce the risk that an overestimated arrival time can result in missing the bus. This study evaluates the model using data collected from real operations of school buses on which a GPS-based Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) system is installed. The proposed model consistently shows the lower level of prediction error than moving average and regression approaches. With the operational strategy, it provides a sufficiently reliable service in which approximately 99% of students do not miss the bus, with the tolerable wait time of 162-177 seconds on average.

01042056

07-1274

English

17p

2007

Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting

CD-ROM

Figures (5) ; References (6) ; Tables (3)

Automatic vehicle location; Estimates; Global Positioning System; Real time information; Regression analysis; School bus passengers; School buses; Traffic delays; Waiting time

Arrival time (Bus transit)

Data and Information Technology; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2007 Paper #07-1274

TRIS, TRB

Feb 8 2007 5:53PM