Variation in bus transit service: understanding the impacts of various improvement strategies on transit service reliability (original) (raw)
Related papers
2012
Transit agencies implement many strategies in order to provide an attractive transportation service. This article aims to evaluate the impacts of implementing a combination of strategies, designed to improve the bus transit service, on running time and passenger satisfaction. These strategies include using smart card fare collection, introducing limited-stop bus service, implementing reserved bus lanes, using articulated buses, and implementing transit signal priority (TSP). This study uses stop-level data collected from the Société de transport de Montréal (STM)’s automatic vehicle location (AVL) and automatic passenger count (APC) systems, in Montréal, Canada. The combination of these strategies has lead to a 10.5% decline in running time along the limited stop service compared to the regular service. The regular route running time has increased by 1% on average compared to the initial time period. The study also shows that riders are generally satisfied with the service improvements. They tend to overestimate the savings associated with the implementation of this combination of strategies by 3.5–6.0 min and by 2.5–4.1 min for both the regular route and the limited stop service, respectively. This study helps transit planners and policy makers to better understand the effects of implementing a combination of strategies to improve running time and passenger’s perception of these changes in service.
Transit agencies are consistently trying to improve service reliability and attract new passengers by employing various strategies. Previous literature reviews have focused on either passengers' or transit agencies' perspectives on service reliability. However, none of the earlier reviews have simultaneously addressed these differing perspectives on service reliability in an integrated manner. In response to this gap in the literature, this paper first reviews previous work on passengers' perspectives of transit service reliability and their response to service adjustments made by different agencies. Second, it analyzes transit agencies' plans and reports regarding their reliability goals and used strategies in order to improve service reliability, while looking at the impacts of these strategies on service. Reviewing these two parts together provides a needed contribution to the literature from a practical viewpoint since it allows for the identification of gaps in the public transit planning and operations field in the area of reliability and provides transit planners and decision makers with effective and valuable policy-relevant information. § Corresponding author.
Transport Reviews, 2015
Transit agencies are consistently trying to improve service reliability and attract new passengers by employing various strategies. Previous literature reviews have focused on either passengers' or transit agencies' perspectives on service reliability. However, none of the earlier reviews have simultaneously addressed these differing perspectives on service reliability in an integrated manner. In response to this gap in the literature, this paper first reviews previous work on passengers' perspectives of transit service reliability and their response to service adjustments made by different agencies. Second, it analyzes transit agencies' plans and reports regarding their reliability goals and used strategies in order to improve service reliability, while looking at the impacts of these strategies on service. Reviewing these two parts together provides a needed contribution to the literature from a practical viewpoint since it allows for the identification of gaps in the public transit planning and operations field in the area of reliability and provides transit planners and decision makers with effective and valuable policy-relevant information.
Definition and Properties of Alternative Bus Service Reliability Measures at the Stop Level
Journal of Public Transportation, 2013
The Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual (TCQSM) provides transit agencies with tools for measuring system performance at different levels of operation. Bus service reliability, one of the key performance measures, has become a major concern of both transit operators and users because it significantly affects user experience and service quality perceptions. The objective of this paper is to assess the existing reliability measures proposed by TCQSM and develop new ones at the bus stop level. The latter are not suggested as replacements for the existing measures; rather, they are complementary. Using empirical data from archived Bus Dispatch System (BDS) data in Portland, Oregon, a number of key characteristics of distributions of delay (schedule deviation) and headway deviation are identified. In addition, the proposed reliability measures at the stop level are capable of differentiating between the costs of being early versus late. The results of this study can be implemented in transit operations for use in improving schedules and operations strategies. Also, transit agencies can use the proposed reliability measures to evaluate and prioritize stops for operational improvement purposes.
Quantifying Impacts of Transit Reliability on User Costs
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2009
Transportation modeling frameworks assume that travelers are economically rational; that is, they choose the lowest-cost alternative to complete a desired trip. The reliability of travel time is of critical importance to travelers. The ability to quantify reliability allows planners to estimate more accurately how system performance influences local travel behavior and to evaluate more appropriately potential investments in the transportation system infrastructure. This paper presents a methodology that makes use of automatic vehicle location data from the regional municipality of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, to estimate the reliability of transit service. On the basis of these data, the impacts of unreliable service on generalized transit user costs are quantified by use of a simulation model of bus arrivals and passengers’ desired arrival times. It is shown that the increasing reliability of arrivals at a station can decrease transit users’ generalized costs significantly and by as ...
Reliability Assessment and Improvements along a Bus Corridor
2015
Service reliability is an important indicator of transit performance, and has been the subject of much attention in both the research and practice for decades. Reliability of bus service depends on variations in service characteristics such as travel time, schedule adherence, headway, and wait time. As a fundamental property of bus service, reliability determines services' cost and attractiveness to existing and potential passengers. It is important to the transit agency for resource planning and operation. In this study, two frameworks are developed to assess and improve bus route service reliability. The reliability of a bus route is assessed by measuring variations in service characteristics, and this can be achieved through: 1) selection of performance measures, 2) evaluation of selected measures, and 3) calculation of selected measures. 16 performance measures are selected after conducting a comprehensive literature review, 12 of which are for the assessment of reliability, and 8 for service efficiency. The 16 measures are evaluated with respect to interested party (agency, operator & passenger), service type (high & low frequency service), and analysis level (stop, corridor, route & network). The assessment framework is applied to Route 1 in the City of Edmonton. Historical Route 1 performance data is collected from the Automatic Passenger Counter (APC) database of Edmonton Transit System (ETS). The overall results of estimated measures indicated that a set of performance measures can reflect reliability from every aspect. It was observed that some measures show that Route 1 is reliable, while some indicate unreliability of Route 1. It is also observed that performance of Route 1 during peak periods is worse than off-peak periods. iii A reliability improvement process through bus route scheduling is also introduced. A schedule-based holding strategy was tested, where early buses with slack time are hold at the timing point until scheduled departure time. In this strategy, slack time is determined from a stochastic optimization model, where the objective is to minimize schedule deviation as well as variation in schedule deviation. Slack time is incorporated into the scheduled departure time. Thus, early buses are required to depart at scheduled departure time. Besides schedule-based holding strategy, transit signal priority (TSP) is also used to improve reliability. In this study, the schedule-based holding strategy is also applied to a bus corridor that has TSP. The application of new schedules that incorporate the holding strategy on bus Route
Influence of Unscheduled Random Public Bus Stops on Transit Travel Time
Journal of Traffic and Logistics Engineering, 2013
Transit Travel time can affect to a large extent the service reliability, operating cost, and system efficiency. This research paper aims to study the negative impact of the unscheduled random public bus stops on travel time for a particular bus route in Cairo, Egypt. These unscheduled stops became a usual behavior for Cairo Public buses, which affects more than four and a half million daily users of this transportation service inside Cairo. In this study, a comprehensive research plan was designed to collect the data concerning the bus behavior along a selected bus route, using GPS data logger. The data collection included time, location, speed, unscheduled stops, and scheduled stops. The collected data was then used to develop a trip time model. The developed model revealed the delay time due to the unscheduled bus stops and the scheduled bus stops. The analysis of the data also showed that passengers rely much more on the unscheduled random bus stops than the scheduled bus stops. The study concluded that minimizing the unscheduled bus stops will decrease the trip time, and so improve the service reliability to a large degree. Index Terms-Travel time, unscheduled random public bus stops, GPS data logger, trip time model, service reliability. 20
Does Transit Service Reliability Influence Ridership?
This research focused on analyzing the association between transit service reliability indicators and ridership. Further, the effect of road network, demographic, socioeconomic, and land use characteristics on transit service reliability was analyzed. The analysis was conducted at a bus stop level. Bus arrival/departure and ridership data from the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) was obtained. The road network, demographic, socioeconomic, and land use characteristics were captured within 0.25-mile and 0.50-mile buffers. Pearson correlation analysis was conducted to understand the association between road network, demographic, socioeconomic, and land use characteristics and bus transit service reliability measures. The results show that bus transit service reliability has a substantial impact on ridership and is influenced by road network, demographic, socioeconomic, and land use characteristics within the bus stop vicinity. The findings help public transportation agencies to eff...
The Bus Transit System: Its Underutilized Potential
1994
The bus system represents the most widely used transit mode. Upgraded bus services, primarily those which have partially or fully separated rights-of-way, represent a very cost-effective method to improve the balance between automobile and transit. Many measures for improving bus services have been introduced since 1970. However, many of these improvements were not maintained: buses were gradually returned to operations in mixed traffic. This report examines the quality of bus services in various cities in North America and worldwide and analyzes the reasons for the phenomenon of "backsliding" or disappearance of bus transit priority measures.
Perceived Quality of Bus Transit Services: A Route-Level Analysis
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2020
Passengers’ perceptions of transit quality depend on their interactions with the service. However, given the varied operational features in any transit network, the perceived service quality is expected to vary between different types of operation. Recently, there has been an emphasis on addressing this issue and quantifying the variation in the perceived service quality at route level. In this respect, this study quantifies the perceived quality of bus services across different route types and user groups. A two-step cluster analysis is developed to classify bus routes based on their operational features, which is followed by a series of importance-performance analysis (IPA) models corresponding to each route type. The study is supported by a primary dataset collected from 1,883 users through an online survey in Hamilton, Canada. The emerging results indicate four predominant route types: core, standard, express, and local routes, each exhibiting a unique set of characteristics. Th...