Public Transportation

This report describes the development process of the Bus Rapid Transit Performance AssessmentGuidebook (BRT PAG) Tool, which provides a decision support means for tool users to understand at a high level the benefits and costs associated with implementing bus rapid transit systems. The BRTPAG Tool is based on a conceptual framework consisting of BRT system strategies; stakeholder groupings; impacts of individual BRT system strategies; measurement methods used to analyze the impacts that BRT system strategies have on different stakeholders; and quantitative estimates of benefits and costs...

This research investigates the feasibility of offering demand-responsive transit (DRT) service to the general public in situations of low demand density. The study region is AC Transit District 2 which consists of the cities of Fremont and Newark, California. We developed a methodology to evaluate operating efficiencies of existing bus lines and line segments, and identified areas suitable for DRT service based on year 2001 data. We proposed an alternating strategy of checkpoint DRT service and compared it to other strategies. The report also described the schema for an automated...

The paper explores how the coordination of vehicle schedules in a public transit system affects generalized costs. We consider an idealized system that delivers its users to a common destination by requiring each to transfer from a feeder- to a trunk-line vehicle. Continuum models are used first to analyze cases in which the trunk-line vehicle schedule is given exogenously. We find that when feeder vehicles are dispatched in coordination with this exogenous trunk-line schedule, the reduction in user cost often outweighs the added cost to the feeder operation. In cases when the frequencies...

"Near-side stops" are bus stops located a short distance upstream of a signalized intersection. A bus dwelling at a near-side stop can impede queued cars upstream as they discharge during their green time at the intersection. Added car delays and residual queues can result. All else equal, the closer the stop’s location to the intersection, the greater the potential damage to car traffic. Models for locating these near-side stops to achieve target levels of residual queueing among cars are formulated using kinematic wave theory. This same approach was also used to develop a strategy for...