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Title:

Variation in Bus Transit Service: Understanding the Impacts of Various Improvement Strategies on Transit Service Reliability

Accession Number:

01476499

Record Type:

Component

Availability:

Transportation Research Board Business Office

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Abstract:

Transit agencies wishing to offer reliable service with less variability face several challenges, encouraging them to employ various strategies. While previous research has considered the effects of various strategies on running time, there has been little effort to understand their impacts on reliability of service. This article examines the impacts of various improvement strategies on running time deviation from schedule, variation in running time, and variation in running time deviation from schedules. These strategies include implementation of a smart card fare collection system, operation of a reserved bus lane, introduction of limited-stop bus service, use of articulated buses, and operation of transit signal priority (TSP). This study conduct this examination using data obtained from the Société de Transport de Montréal (STM)’s automatic vehicle location (AVL) and automatic passenger count (APC) systems, in Montreal, Canada, at the bus route segment level of analysis. The introduction of a smart card fare collection system increased bus running time and service variation. Articulated buses, limited-stop bus service and reserved bus lanes have mixed effects on variation in comparison to the running time changes, while TSP did not show an impact on variations in our study. This study offers transit agencies and schedulers a better understanding of the effects of various strategies on different aspects of service variation, which are important components of transit service reliability.

Supplemental Notes:

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP010 Transit Management and Performance

Monograph Accession #:

01470560

Report/Paper Numbers:

13-1665

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Authors:

Diab, Ehab I
El-Geneidy, Ahmed M

Pagination:

25p

Publication Date:

2013

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2013-1-13 to 2013-1-17
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

Digital/other

Features:

Figures; References; Tables

Geographic Terms:

Montreal (Canada)

Subject Areas:

Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2013 Paper #13-1665

Files:

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Created Date:

Feb 5 2013 12:24PM