Bus queue time estimation model for a curbside bus stop considering the blocking effect

Abstract

Bus queue time estimation of a curbside bus stop is essential to evaluate the operation, reliability and performance of a bus system. Arriving buses and served buses on upstream berths form an overflow queue considering the no overtaking principle and limited overtaking principle. The bus dwelling time at the downstream berth may directly influence the capacity at bus stop. This study aims to estimate the queue time attributed to downstream berth blocking effect. The queue delay is modeled as a function of dwell time which is fitting by normal and lognormal distributions. Hence, the queue time should be evaluated by bus dwell time and joint probability density to quantify the negative influence on queue delay. The result indicate that probability distribution versus the queue time in the blocking effect. An illustrative example is presented to reflect the effectiveness of the estimation method. The fitting results further support our theoretical analyses.