A headway-based approach to eliminate bus bunching: Systematic analysis and comparisons

Carlos F. Daganzo

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 2009, vol. 43, issue 10, 913-921

Abstract: Bus schedules cannot be easily maintained on busy lines with short headways: experience shows that buses offering this type of service usually arrive irregularly at their stops, often in bunches. Although transit agencies build slack into their schedules to alleviate this problem - if necessary holding buses at control points to stay on schedule - their attempts often fail because practical amounts of slack cannot prevent large localized disruptions from spreading system-wide. This paper systematically analyzes an adaptive control scheme to mitigate this problem. The proposed scheme dynamically determines bus holding times at a route's control points based on real-time headway information. The method requires less slack than the conventional, schedule-based approach to produce headways within a given tolerance. This allows buses to travel faster than with the conventional approach, reducing in-vehicle passenger delay and increasing bus productivity.

Keywords: Bus; bunching; Transit; operations; Adaptive; control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (86)

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