Considering Passenger Choices and Overtaking in the Bus Bunching Problem

Bus bunching is a well-known phenomenon on many bus routes where an initial delay to one service can disturb the whole schedule due to resulting differences in dwell times of subsequent buses at stops. This paper deals with the passenger behavior when there is more than one bus serving the stop, focusing on their choices and possible switching actions from the queue of the bus they are waiting to board. A parameter y is introduced to denote the percentage of passengers boarding the front bus when buses are bunched. Cases when overtaking is allowed or not are distinguished as they will also influence the passenger behavior. A set of discrete state equations is then implemented to obtain the departure times of the buses following the occurrence of an exogenous delay to one of the buses. Evaluation indices are introduced to measure the performance of the bus service along a corridor under different y levels. The authors find that it is advantageous to keep the percentage of passengers boarding the front bus low. Beside, overtaking is a favourable counter-measure against comparatively high front-bus preference.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP050 Standing Committee on Bus Transit Systems.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Sun, Wenzhe
  • Schmöcker, Jan-Dirk
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
• Date: 2016

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 19p
• Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Behavior; Bunching; Bus routes; Bus transit; Passengers; Traffic delays
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01589841
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 16-3428
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 4 2016 9:24AM