Accessibility and Public Transport Research at UCL

Modelling bus stop interactions


Summary

Description

The long term aim of this research is to contribute to better public transport services. The general objective of this particular piece of research is to assist in improving mobility in the bus system by improvements to the bus stop facilities. Two specific objectives are pursued: to enhance the understanding of interactions at bus stops and their consequences and to derive further recommendations from this understanding for design purposes.

A context for the problem of mobility in public transport has been developed. As a consequence, the importance of buses and bus stops is raised and a review of various approaches related to bus stop and bus operations was made. It was found that current methods to analyse bus stop interactions are not sufficient. The simultaneous processes that take place at bus stops suggest that a parallel conception of bus stop interactions is needed.

A micro simulation model of the parallel interactions at a bus stop has been developed (PASSION: PArallel Stop SimulatION). Various experiments with the model have been done. The results show that a detailed modelling of bus stop interactions and good designs can influence bus operations. The main findings of this research are summarised in further design recommendations of bus stops.

In 1999 further improvements have been made to the microsimulation model of bus stops (PASSION 3.0) as part of a Fondecyt project in order to produce a better functional specification of the model that includes the consideration of the capacity of the vehicles, different door use discipline and better representation of the blocking time caused by pulling out of the bus stop. The process of validation and calibration of the new version of the model (PASSION 4.2) is in progress and pilot experiments are being performed to expand the previous conclusions.
 

Reports

FERNÁNDEZ, R.E. and Y.E. VALENZUELA (1999) Bases para una gestión ambiental de tránsito. Actas del IX Congreso Chileno de Ingeniería de Transporte, 485-495, Santiago, Chile. (in Spanish)

FERNÁNDEZ, R.E. and Y.M SALAMANCA (1999) Aspectos de diseño de paraderos de alto estándar. Actas del IX Congreso Chileno de Ingeniería de Transporte, 274-286, Santiago, Chile. (in Spanish)

FERNÁNDEZ, R (1999) Design of bus-stop priorities. Traffic Engineering + Control, 40(6), 335-340.

FERNÁNDEZ, R. and N.A. TYLER (1999)  Design of Bus Stops as part of Bus Priorities. Poster presented at the European Transport Conference, Cambridge, September.

FERNÁNDEZ, R (1999) Modelling bus stop interactions. PhD Thesis, University of London (Unpublished).

GIBSON, J., R. FERNÁNDEZ and A. ALBERT (1997) Operación de paraderos formales en Santiago. Paper presented at the VIII Congreso Chileno de Ingeniería de  Transporte, Santiago, Chile, November 1997. (in Spanish)

TYLER, N.A. and R.FERNÁNDEZ (1996) Integracion del diseño de paraderos en las medidas de prioridad a los buses. Paper presented at the IX Congreso Panamericano de Ingeniería de Tránsito y Transporte. Havana,  Cuba, December 1996. (in Spanish)

FERNÁNDEZ, R. (1996) Modelling bus stop interactions. Working paper, University of London Centre for Transport Studies, London.

FERNÁNDEZ, R., J.GIBSON and M.MENDEZ (1995) Modelación del comportamiento en parados de alta demanda. Paper presented at the VII Congreso Chileno de Ingeniería de Transporte. Santiago,  Chile,  October 1995. (in Spanish)

FERNÁNDEZ, R. and N.A.TYLER (1995) Modelación de las interacciones en paraderos de buses.  Paper presented at the VII Congreso Chileno de Ingeniería de Transporte. Santiago, Chile, October 1995. (in Spanish)

Contacts

Rodrigo Fernández (student)
Nick Tyler (supervisor)


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