Bus service performance analysis. : Case study: Bus line 1 in Stockholm, Sweden

• Main Author: Ólafsdóttír, Ásdís
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: KTH, Trafik och logistik 2012
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-96504

Transit reliability is one of the key factors in running a successful transit system from both passengers’ and operators’ perspective. To improve the reliability of a transit service a performance analysis is necessary. There are several service measures that can be applied to evaluate the performance of a transit service, both in relation to service punctuality and service regularity. Punctuality can be considered of higher importance on low frequency lines and regularity on high frequency lines. Bunching is used to describe how vehicles occupying the same bus route tend to bunch up and consequently the reliability decreases. For improving reliability several holding control strategies can be applied such as schedulebased holding, where early vehicles are held at time points, and headway ‐based holding, where vehicles are held to retrieve even headways between consecutive vehicles. This thesis provides an overview of several different performance measures that can be analyzed using Automatic Vehicle Location data (AVL) and Automatic Passenger Counters data (APC) collected from bus vehicles. As a case study, bus line 1 in Stockholm was analyzed. The line is a high frequency, inner city bus line, where schedule based holding is the current holding control strategy. The performance analysis included an analysis of service regularity, service punctuality, dwell times, passenger boarding/alighting and load, and run times. A linear regression analysis was applied to evaluate the effects of passenger activity on the dwell times. The results showed that the overall service performance decreased along the line for both directions. Vehicle trajectories revealed increased bunching along the line. The drivers’ compliance to holding analysis showed that there was room for improvement. Overall, the analysis showed that the current holding control strategy does not retrieve headway regularity and that the schedule for vehicle run times was too tight and needs revision. Furthermore, switching to headway ‐based holding was suggested.