Effectiveness of Bus Priority Lane as Countermeasure for Congestion

Abstract

The main objective of this research is to identify the effectiveness of the bus priority lane in Shizuoka City, Japan, as a countermeasure for traffic congestion. Shizuoka City, the capital of Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan, suffers from frequent traffic congestion. To tackle this problem, authorities of Shizuoka City tested a pilot project that implemented bus rapid transit (BRT) strategies. This project included a bus priority lane along a 3-km segment and a bus priority signal system. The project data were obtained mainly through traffic surveys, bus surveys, and questionnaire surveys, which were conducted by the authors and by Shizuoka City authorities. All these surveys were carried out twice, before and after the implementation of BRT strategies. After priority treatments were introduced, the number of vehicles using the main road was reduced. Also, queue-length and jam-length measurements showed signs of easing of traffic congestion, and travel times of general vehicles were improved. Although the change associated with total travel time of buses was not statistically significant, it still showed a reducing trend. However, travel times of buses, excluding dwelling times, showed a significant reduction. The difference of significance associated with the above travel parameters was mainly caused by the increase incurred in dwelling times of buses. It was evident that the smoothness of traffic flow along the bus lane as well as along the general traffic lane was improved by the BRT project.

Strategies for sharing bottleneck capacity among buses and cars

“…Both Viegas et al (2007) and Currie & Lai (2008) concluded that driver compliance with the intermittent bus lane restrictions was high and also that intermittent sharing strategies improved bus service without significantly degrading car traffic. Sakamoto et al (2007) also field tested the idea of allowing cars to use a bus priority lane when buses are not present in Shizuoka, Japan. These authors not only observed reduced travel times for buses, but also a reduction in car congestion.…”

“…However, Currie & Lai (2008) reported that during the field experiments conducted for intermittent lanes in Melbourne, Australia no increase in accidents was observed. While reporting some initial confusion among drivers in the field experiment of intermittent lanes in Shizuoka, Japan, Sakamoto et al (2007) stated that the drivers were behaving as expected by the end of the experiment (which lasted 5 days). The authors also reported that as a result of a survey conducted on residents who live close to field experiment site, the dissatisfaction rate was only 10%.…”

Simulation of Bus Lanes in Motorcycle-Dominated Traffic Flow by Using Agent-Based Model

“…Takeshita et al (2007) assessed an exclusive median bus lane system in Nagoya of Japan. Bus lane systems were also studied comprehensively in the research studies of (Shalaby and Soberman,1994;Shalaby,1999;Seo et al, 2005;Sakamoto et al, 2007;Arasan and Vedagiri, 2008;Zhu et al, 2010;Tian and Jia, 2016;Chen et al, 2016;Cesme et al, 2016).…”

Modeling a bus through a sequence of traffic lights

“…36-48, for examples). a) Electronic address: jorge.villalobos@unibague.edu.co Among these researchers, there seems to be an interest on the impact of exclusive-lines on the dynamics of buses; [49][50][51] however, most of the cited articles are concerned with the evaluation of the single lines as viable strategies, and not on characterizing the different dynamics that can occur.…”