Identify the Optimal Locations of Dedicated Bus Lanes to Improve the Stability of Bus Line

TL;DR

This paper proposes an optimization model and algorithm to determine the best locations for dedicated bus lanes, aiming to enhance bus line stability by considering deployment effects and operational constraints.

Contribution

It introduces a nonlinear mixed integer stochastic model and a branch and bound algorithm for optimal placement of dedicated bus lanes to improve bus operation stability.

Findings

More evenly distributed DBLs increase bus line stability.

Limiting the number of critical time points improves speed regulation accuracy.

Even distribution of DBLs enhances overall bus service stability.

Abstract

Bus bunching and unevenly dispersed buses along a bus line lead to a low service level and deteriorate the operational stability of the bus line. Speed adjustment as a control means has been proposed to solve the above problem. But due to the difficulty of adjusting speed in the mixed traffic and the discontinuously distributed dedicated bus lanes (DBLs) in a bus line, the existing methods which coordinate or adjust bus speeds in all road segments encounter serious obstacles in practice. To overcome the above problem, we first take into account the influence of the deployment of the DBLs along a bus line on the performance of the speed adjustment strategy. With the funding limit and the maximally allowable influence on other road traffic as main constraints, a nonlinear mixed integer stochastic mathematic model is formulated aiming at improving the whole stability of the bus line operation. The model can be effectively solved by a newly designed branch and bound algorithm. The optimal regulating speed in a DBL is determined with a process of looking multiple critical time point ahead. Numerical experiment verified the effectiveness and efficiency of our new method. Three findings were obtained as follows. To determine the optimal regulating speed, the number of the critical time points to be looked ahead should not be too big. Increasing the number of DBLs improves the stability of a bus line. The more evenly DBLs are distributed along the bus line, the greater the stability of the bus line will be.