Field Operational Tests of Adaptive Transit Signal Priority Systems

An Adaptive Transit Signal Priority (ATSP) system is built upon and integrated with the existing Transit Automated Vehicle Location/Advanced communications system (AVL/ACS) to provide transit buses with needed priority by adaptively determining an optimum signal timing strategy based on status of both the concerned transit bus and the traffic conditions. PATH has conducted a series of studies on ATSP in collaboration with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and San Mateo County Transit District (SamTrans) since 2000, involving the development and implementation of a prototype ATSP system and studies of the deployment issues. This report summarizes a continuous research effort for refining the ATSP system through field operational tests in order to make it readily deployable.