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.
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Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
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Authors:
- Lindau, Luis Antonio
- Pereira, Brenda Medeiros
- Castilho, Rodrigo Alberto de
- Diogenes, Mara Chagas
- Maldonado, Juan Carlos Herrera
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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