High-flow bus operation on urban arterial roads

Lindau, Luis Antonio (1983) High-flow bus operation on urban arterial roads. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Abstract

The research undertaken in this study is related to the investigation of bus priority measures in urban areas. The work has been concentrated on the evaluation of the effectiveness of high-flow median bus Lanes prior to their suggested large-scale field implementation in the metropolitan areas of Brazil. A comprehensive literature review identified the extent to which bus priority schemes have been investigated. It included critical comments on previous studies. Simulation was adopted as the method of approach. A microscopic model was formulated to reproduce the traffic behaviour of all classes of vehicles travelling on a section of a one directional multi-lane urban roadway. The specially constructed computer program, set in a modular format, enabled the representation of both bus priority and non-priority configurations. The 'do-nothing' situation was characterized by all vehicles sharing the use of the road space while in the 'priority' situation the median Lane was reserved for the exclusive use of buses. Particular emphasis has been given to the calibration and validation stages of the model. Traffic data was mainly obtained from time lapse films taken in Brazil. Comparisons between predicted and observed measures of effectiveness showed that the simulation model could adequately describe traffic behaviour over a wide range of conditions. The effects of geometric and bus operational aspects have been examined by applying the model to alternative configurations. The cases studied included such measures as the adoption of bus platoons, different signal progression techniques, bus stop locations and cycle times.

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