A Bus-Following Model for Preventing Service Unreliability on a Circular Bus Route

Abstract

Aiming at decreasing average passenger waiting time at stops, headway adherence was used to measure the route-level transit service reliability for high frequency bus route services. Considering the fluctuation of passenger demand and the stochastic nature of running time on road segments, a bus-following model was built to prevent service unreliability on a circular route of high frequency bus services with recurrent buses. In the case study, the Monte-Carlo method was used to simulate the process of bus services. Headway variation and average passenger wait time at stops were statistically calculated for two different situations with no preventive control or preventive control. The results showed that, by pre-warning potential big headway deviation and triggering real-time preventive control strategies, bus bunching or big gap could be avoided and average passenger wait time at stops could be reduced.