Improvement of methods for assessing the effectiveness of dedicated lanes for public transport

Abstract

There are different configurations of street and road networks in cities, which is why those transportation models that determine how effectively a public transport network is operated are different. Along with this, some transport areas may have characteristic features predetermined by the density of a street network, the intensity of individual and public traffic. The special feature of the current study is determining the operational effectiveness of dedicated lanes for public transport given a significant density of the main street and road network. Significant density is characterized by its value for the distance between adjacent intersections in the range of 150‒200 m. With such planning patterns, there is a mutual influence of the conditions of individual and public transport between adjacent intersections. An increase in the distance between intersections disrupts the stability of traffic flow through its disintegration into separate groups based on the dynamic characteristics of vehicles. A characteristic feature of the proposed procedure for evaluating the operational effectiveness of dedicated lanes is that the use of a GPS monitoring system makes it possible to relatively quickly determine the areas of the network where there are the greatest delays in movement in real time. After that, attention is focused on investigating the main factors of influence and their parameters followed by modeling. The reported results would in the future contribute to devising a clear sequence of transport-related research based on a set of their methods in order to acquire representative data and define adequate patterns. An important practical result is the use of not only established normative approaches to the design of dedicated lanes, which are common for all types of street and road networks but taking into consideration the peculiarities characteristic of their individual sections.