01520091

Component

Efficient public transportation has the potential to relieve traffic congestion and improve overall transportation system performance. In order to improve transit service, Transit Preferential Treatments (TPT) are often deployed to give transit vehicles priority over other vehicles at an intersection or along a corridor. Examples of such treatments are exclusive bus lanes, queue jumper lanes, and signal priority strategies. The objective of this paper is to perform a person-based evaluation of alternative TPTs when considered individually and in combination. An analytical model is developed to assess person delay and person discharge flow of the alternative TPTs at each of the intersections of a signalized arterial. The performance of the TPTs is evaluated using both the analytical model and through simulation tests on a four-intersection segment of San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley, CA. Results indicate that the analytical model produces outcomes that are comparable with the simulation results and therefore it is concluded that the analytical model may be used for a quantitative evaluation of TPTs without the need for time consuming and data intensive simulations. Overall, space priority treatments were found to introduce noticeable benefits to transit users. Negative impacts were observed to the auto users only when a lane was substituted for a bus lane where it led to oversaturated conditions. Changes in person discharge flow were not significant for any of the treatments tested with the exception of the bus lane substitution with and without green extension, which led to significant decrease in person discharge flow.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP015 Transit Capacity and Quality of Service.

01503729

14-2995

English

19p

2014

Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Arterial highways; Bus priority; Bus transit; Evaluation and assessment; Signalized intersections; Traffic congestion

Berkeley (California)

Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I73: Traffic Control

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2014 Paper #14-2995

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 27 2014 3:02PM