Evaluating Operational Effects of Bus Lane with Intermittent Priority under Connected Vehicle Environments

Abstract

Bus lane with intermittent priority (BLIP) is an innovative method to improve the reliability of bus services while promoting efficient usage of road resources. Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication is an advanced technology that can greatly enhance the vehicle mobility, improve traffic safety, and alleviate traffic jams. To explore the benefits of BLIP operation under a connected environment, this study proposed a three-lane cellular automata (CA) model under opening boundary condition. In particular, a mandatory BLIP lane-changing rule is developed to analyze special asymmetric lane-changing behaviors. To improve the simulation accuracy, a smaller cell size is used in the CA model. Through massive numerical simulations, the benefits and influences of BLIP are explored in this paper. They include impacts on neighborhood lanes such as traffic density increasing and average speed decreasing, lane-changing behaviors, lane usage, and the impacts of bus departure interval and clear distance on the road capacity of BLIP. Analysis of traffic flow characteristics of BLIP reveals that there is a strong relationship among bus departure interval, clear distance, and road capacity. Furthermore, setting conditions for deployment of BLIP under the V2V environment such as reasonable departure interval, clear distance, and traffic density are obtained.

A Two-Lane Cellular Automaton Model to Evaluate the Bus Lane with Intermittent Priority

“…In a connected vehicle environment, existing studies have explored the implementation of forced lane change rules underlying the CV-based BLIP strategy. A microsimulation analysis shows CV-based BLIP could result in up to 32% benefit compared with a dedicated bus lane [3,10] in arterial. Recommended clear distance is between 300 and 500 meters.…”

“…e original BLIP concept was based on road segments and used variable message signs (VMSs) to provide information on vehicle rights-of-way. e road network geometry and intersection locations determine the length of each road segment [3][4][5][6]. If a bus is detected to be moving in the lane, the road segment of BLIP will continue to change to a bus lane one by one.…”

Research on the Cooperative Control Method of Intermittent Bus Lane and Downstream Intersection

“…Based on the HCM2010 vehicle delay formula and road resistance function, a model of the average and per capita travel time of vehicles under different road conditions was established, and the setting conditions of the bus lane were given; Qiufeng and Wenquan [4] analyzed the variation of the total delay error of the intersection before and after the intermittent bus entrance lane was set up and found that when the traffic saturation of the entrance lane is less than the critical traffic saturation, the delay in setting the intermittent bus-dedicated entry lane is lower; in exploring the capacity in terms of influencing factors, Yulin et al [5] improved the space utilization rate by dynamically controlling the opening time of intermittent bus entrance lanes to social vehicles and conducted a quantitative analysis of social vehicle delays at intersections; Dingxin [6] introduced the anticollision rule which puts forward the capacity reduction mechanism of intermittent priority bus lanes and concluded that the increase in clearing distance and the decrease of the bus departure interval will reduce the capacity of intermittent priority bus lanes; Eichler and Daganzo [7] used the theory of distributed waves. e analysis found that social traffic saturation and bus departure frequency are the key factors that affect the effectiveness of intermittent bus lanes; Wu et al [8] formulated mandatory intermittent bus lane-changing rules in a vehicle-route coordination environment. e simulation model was used to analyze the control effect under different departure time intervals and vehicle density; Qiu [9] and others analyzed the impact of the IBL on the traffic density, speed, and flow of the road section through computer simulation, indicating that the service level is the turning point for the implementation of the IBL strategy; Wu et al [10] proposed a method to provide intermittent priority for dedicated bus lanes and analyzed the influence of departure frequency on delays; in terms of signal correlation control, Guler et al [11] proposed a similar advance signal control strategy of intermittent bus lanes which is to install auxiliary signal lights in the upstream and downstream of the main line signal to control the operation mode of the bus; Ma and Xu [12] proposed a bus priority strategy and gave a green wave coordination control method for the bus operation line; Chiabaut and Barcet [13] evaluated the impact of the intermittent bus lane strategy on traffic conditions and pointed out that the travel time of buses will be significantly reduced when combined with bus signals.…”

Overall Influence of Dedicated Lanes for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles on Freeway Heterogeneous Traffic Flow

“…e managed lane strategy can improve traffic conditions by setting up dedicated lanes for specific vehicles. Bus lanes, high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, and high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes are all based on similar concepts and have proven their feasibility through practices [34][35][36]. Due to the limitations of technologies, studies on the CAV dedicated lane are still at the theoretical level and have not been put into practice.…”