Evaluation of Transit Signal Priority Strategies for Bus Rapid Transit Project on 3500 South Street in Salt Lake City.

摘要

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is becoming one of the most popular transit services in the United States. BRT is a viable option for many cities and can offer commuters travel times comparable to those experienced in private cars. With about 100 miles of BRT service scheduled for deployment in future years, Utah Transit Authority (UTA) for the first time is facing questions related to BRT service. How will the service interact with private traffic. Will passengers accept unfamiliar features of the new service. We looked at the new BRT deployment in West Valley City, Salt Lake County, UT. Lacking BRT operational data from the field, but with a need to estimate operational challenges before the actual implementation, we used estimates generated from a microsimulation model. In addition, a series of surveys were conducted to gain feedback from the users of the BRT system. Results from the microsimulation runs show that the new BRT line leads to significant improvements of transit operations, with reductions of close to 20% in travel times and 40% in dwell times. An additional transit signal priority (TSP) feature is estimated to reduce travel times another 15%. The results showed that TSP has minor negative impact on side-street traffic and no impact or minor positive impact on main traffic. Results from the survey's show a high degree of acceptance of the new MAX buses among passengers and drivers. In short, the first BRT system in Utah can be qualified as another success story for the BRT systems in the United States.