A heuristic approach to optimise public transport priority in an urban network

Traffic congestion is a challenge facing many urban transport networks. While construction of new roads is not a viable option in many cities, improvement of public transport (PT) facilities can offer a solution. Introduction of exclusive lanes for PT vehicles is a green and low cost improvement which is focused in this paper. Many approaches in the literature devised an exclusive lane based on a local perspective and some other studies evaluated priority lanes on urban freeways. It is of great importance to develop methods for introduction of PT exclusive lanes from a network perspective and on arterial roads. In this study, a method is proposed to locate PT exclusive lanes in an urban transport network. Considering all the stakeholders of the transport network, a comprehensive transport planning model is used to evaluate a given set of exclusive lanes. In the transport planning model, a traffic assignment model and a transit assignment model is included to consider the primary effect of the prioritization, as well as a modal split model to capture the secondary effects of mode shift. A genetic algorithm approach is applied to find the optimal solution. The procedure is implemented by a powerful interface with a Visum and computational issues are addressed for a real world application.

• Record URL:
  • http://www.atrf.info/papers/2009/2009_Mesbah_Sarvi.pdf
• 
• Authors:
  • Mesbah, M
  • Sarvi, M
• Conference:
  • Australasian Transport Research Forum (ATRF), 32nd, 2009, Auckland, New Zealand
• Publication Date: 2009-9

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: 11p (session Thurs 2D)
• Serial:
  • Volume: 32

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Highway traffic control; Mathematical models; Public transit; Right of way (Traffic); Traffic assignment; Traffic congestion; Traffic flow; Transportation operations
• ATRI Terms: Modelling; Priority traffic; Public transport; Traffic assignment; Traffic congestion; Traffic flow; Traffic management; Transport network
• Subject Areas: Operations and Traffic Management; Public Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01381740
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: ARRB
• Files: ATRI
• Created Date: Aug 22 2012 12:45PM