Promotion or Demotion? Effects of the London Cycle Superhighway on Bus Operation Speed

摘要

The London cycle superhighway is always criticized as "nothing but blue paint"'. Some people even suggest it will decrease traffic efficiency. This paper analyzes the impacts of the London cycle superhighways on the adjacent bus operation speed using a propensity score matching method (PSM). We include 43 cycle superhighway segments as the treated group and 208 control segments in this research. The live bus arrival time is collected to calculate bus travel speeds. Those arrival time data can effectively guarantee the accuracy of the outcomes. The variables affecting bus operations such as traffic flow, bicycle volume, economic situation, population, and employment are deployed in this research. The experiment is conducted based on six time periods which are morning peak hour, evening peak hour and non-peak hour for both weekday and weekend individually. We further divide the treated samples into two sub-groups which are segregated and non-segregated cycle superhighway segments. Both groups have an operation speed higher than the control group. But it shows that the non-segregated buses are faster than the segregated ones, which is due to the fact that buses near non-segregated segments are always in the non-central area and having larger station spacing. We compare the bus operation speed under different bicycle volume conditions. It also suggests that a higher bicycle volume is related to a lower bus operation speed. After a single factor analysis, the PSM is deployed to conduct a multiple-factor analysis. However, the results show that there is no significant difference between the treated group and the control group, which means CS facilities have neither promotion nor demotion effect on buses operation speed.