Control Strategies for Transit Priority

Abstract

Control strategies for transit priority have long been recognized as having the potential to improve traffic performance for transit vehicles, which could also lead to improved schedule reliability, reduced operating costs, and greater ridership. However, there have been relatively few successful implementations of transit priority measures on urban networks with signalized intersections in coordinated signal systems. Existing control strategies are reviewed, the major factors affecting transit priority are identified, and the formulation of both passive and active transit priority strategies for arterials with coordinated traffic signals are described. The proposed strategies were evaluated on a real-life arterial corridor. The proposed passive and active priority strategies placed major emphasis on the systemwide improvements to the transit movements and on minimization of the adverse impacts to the rest of the traffic stream. The criteria used to grant priority include the availability of spare green time in the system cycle length, progression at the downstream intersection(s), and schedule adherence. An evaluation technique was also developed to assist in the design of the signal priority strategies and to predict the impacts of the transit priority measures.