MEASURING THE IMPACTS OF TRANSIT SIGNAL PRIORITY TY BY SYNCRHONIZING MANUALLY COLLECTED DATA WITH APC DATA

摘要

Transit signal priority (TSP) facilitates the movement of transit vehicles through signalizedintersections by modifying the normal signal cycle to better accommodate the transit vehicles.Although simulation tools can help predict the impacts of TSP, empirical evaluations have theadvantage of providing “real world” data. This paper describes an empirical method that wasused to measure the before and after effects of TSP for the I-95 Express Bus Service in SouthFlorida. The method involved synchronizing travel time data from the automated passengercounters (APCs) with delay data collected manually by observers on the bus. The result was acomplete picture of the TSP’s impacts to transit service. The measures included before and afterresults for travel times, on-time performance, components of delay (e.g., dwell time, signaldelay, turn-out delay), as well as average signal delay per intersection. The results showed a 12.1percent reduction in bus travel times, a decrease in average signal delay from 24 to 20 percent ofthe total travel time, and an improvement in on-time performance from 66.7 to 75 percent. Theresults confirmed that nearly every intersection experienced less delay with the TSP activated.As a result of these improvements, Broward County Transit was able to modify the routeschedule and reduce the actual running time by four minutes.