Effects of rural bus stops on travel time and reliability

Abstract

Due to relatively low patronage levels, rural bus stops are sometimes questioned in order to improve travel time and reliability on regional bus services. Previous research into stop spacing has focused on urban areas, which means that there is a lack of knowledge regarding the effects of bus stops in regional networks, with longer distances, higher speeds, and lower passenger volumes, in general. The present study addresses this knowledge gap by analysing the effects of bus stops on a regional bus service regarding average travel times, travel time variability, and on-time performance. This is done by statistical analysis of automatic vehicle location (AVL) data, using a combination of methods previously used for analysis of rail traffic and urban bus operations. The results reveal that bus stops that are only used sporadically have a limited impact on average travel times, in general. In contrast, they are all the more influential on travel time variability, and, in turn, on on-time performance. On the studied bus service, the number of stops made have a far greater impact on travel time variability than any of the other included variables, such as the weather or traffic conditions during peak hours. However, the results suggest that rural bus stops have a much lower impact than what we define as secondary bus stops in urban areas. Consequently, by primarily focusing on bus stop consolidation in urban areas, it is possible to significantly improve service reliability without impairing rural coverage.

Agent-based decision-support model for bus route redesign in networks of small cities and towns: case study of Agder, Norway

“…It is also important to consider the connection with other local and regional feeder lines, the simulation for S4 where the location of the bus stop also serves Line 133 showing a clear increase in patronage. This confirms the findings of Hansson et al (2022) and Tønnesen et al (2021), who stressed the need to ensure a high level of accessibility to bus stops, both from the perspective of service quality as well as multimodal access, such as car and bicycle parking possibilities. The routing simulations used an identical schedule for S0 and for S2-S6, indicating that a redesign of the ES route is crucial in increasing patronage for the user group.…”

Enhancing service quality of rural public transport during the COVID-19 pandemic: a novel fuzzy approach

“…Most of the present literature focused on advanced cities as urban areas (Ingvardson and Nielsen 2022 ), metro cities (Wan et al 2016 ), and developed countries (Govinder 2014 ), where advanced technology is widely deployed. In addition, few studies have been conducted on the effects of rural bus stops on travel time and reliability (Hansson et al 2022 ), Šipuš and Abramović ( 2017 ) identified geographic and demographic factors for the possibility of using public transportation in the rural area, and developed models for rural bus transportation using a neural networks approach (Wagale et al 2016 ), bus station design combined with mystery shopping (Voß et al 2020 ), and Tripathi et al ( 2012 ) analyzed the literature of the public transport system in India. Some of the significant observations based on the review of literature are as follows: most of the present literature has been conducted in developed countries and most studies are concentrated in the context of urban areas or city transportation (Yaya et al 2015 ).…”