Evaluation of Travel Time at Conventional Bus Stops

Abstract

A limited number of berths can result in a bus stopping upstream of a bus stop when the berths are fully occupied. When this traffic situation occurs, passengers waiting on the platform usually prefer to walk to the stopped bus, which leads to additional walking time before boarding the bus. To understand this situation, this paper divides the travel time at conventional bus stops into waiting time, additional walking time, and boarding time. The additional walking time was formulated based on the theory of queuing and probability. Field-measured and simulated data were designated to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model. By analysing the results, it can be concluded that additional walking time will increase on a large scale when the number of berths at a bus stop exceeds the threshold of three. The theoretical analysis explains the inefficiency of bus stops with more than three berths from the perspective of passengers' additional walking time, which is significant in regards to the design of bus stops.