Optimization of bus stop stations in Kuwait

Abstract

Recently, Kuwait road system is facing many problems in all perspectives. Public bus service was implemented by the time of constructing the road network in Kuwait without considering the future development or growth rates. This work aims to develop the public bus services in terms of time improvement, environment protection, decreasing the processing cost and mitigating traffic congestion. This was done by elimination and optimization of bus stops at certain routes as models; 18 and 507. Site investigation and a survey were conducted to indicate the problems affecting bus users on these routes. Bus routes data was collected from KPTC database and using an android application called “Mydriving”. It was then analyzed using Excel Sheets and referring to HCM latest version. Different elements were considered in this work such as spacing between bus stops, the peak times and dwell time. The survey results showed that most of the passengers are non-Kuwaiti and they ride the public bus daily to go to work. The field observation proved that as the number of passengers increases, the dwell time increases. The stations of zero passengers were eliminated and the distance between stops were optimized. The public bus services need to be highly improved to attract more passengers and reduce the explicit dependency on private cars in Kuwait. Also, there is a considerable lack of standards that control the bus stops locations in Kuwait. The research results can be beneficial for KPTC and traffic authorities in Kuwait. A standard distance of 1–1.4 km between each two stops should be adopted. The dwell time should be increased to more than 6 s per passenger. Other bus routes should be investigated to evaluate the public bus services on them.