Exploring the performance limit of a single lane per direction Bus Rapid Transit Systems (BRT)

Despite its booming growth, the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) industry is still far from reaching maturity. As trial-and-error and empirical techniques were largely used as insights for innovations in design, some BRT systems achieved great successes in terms of performance and became world-class flagships. Other systems would be most properly classified as busway systems requiring major improvements. In this paper the authors explore the performance of a single lane per direction no-overtaking BRT corridor, in terms of capacity and operating speed, by conducting a series of experiments that comprised the simulation of 324 alternative scenarios. In the simulation runs the authors varied: demand levels, boarding and alighting rates, spacing of stations, vehicle loadings, quantity of berths per station, and traffic signal positioning in relation to stations. The qualitative analysis reveals that such a BRT system can achieve a capacity around 15,000 pass/h/dir along its critical section with an operating speed of 20 km/h. Preliminary statistical analysis enabled the estimation of a regression model representing the impact of BRT design elements on the operating speed. The findings provide useful insights for designers of high-performance BRT corridors.

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

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Lindau, Luis Antonio
  • Pereira, Brenda Medeiros
  • Castilho, Rodrigo Alberto de
  • Diogenes, Mara Chagas
  • Maldonado, Juan Carlos Herrera
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2013-1-13 to 2013-1-17
• Date: 2013

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 13p
• Monograph Title: TRB 92nd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Boarding and alighting; Bus lanes; Bus rapid transit; Bus terminals; Operating speed; Person capacity; Regression analysis; Simulation; Traffic signals
• Subject Areas: Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01476497
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 13-1412
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 22 2013 9:15AM