A Comparison of Tram Priority at Signalised Intersections in Melbourne

Abstract

We study tram priority at signalised intersections using a stochastic cellular automaton model for multi-modal traffic flow. We simulate realistic traffic signal systems, which include signal linking and adaptive cycle lengths and split plans, with different levels of tram priority. We find that tram priority can improve service performance in terms of both average travel time and travel time variability. We consider two main types of tram priority, which we refer to as full and partial priority. Full tram priority is able to guarantee service quality even when traffic is saturated, however, it results in significant costs to other road users. Partial tram priority significantly reduces tram delays while having limited impact on other traffic, and therefore achieves a better result in terms of the overall network performance. We also study variations in which the tram priority is only enforced when trams are running behind schedule, and we find that those variations retain almost all of the benefit for tram operations, but with reduced negative impact on the network.