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A headway-based approach to eliminate bus bunching: Systematic analysis and comparisons

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  • Daganzo, Carlos F.

Abstract

Bus schedules cannot be easily maintained on busy lines with short headways: experience shows that buses offering this type of service usually arrive irregularly at their stops, often in bunches. Although transit agencies build slack into their schedules to alleviate this problem - if necessary holding buses at control points to stay on schedule - their attempts often fail because practical amounts of slack cannot prevent large localized disruptions from spreading system-wide. This paper systematically analyzes an adaptive control scheme to mitigate this problem. The proposed scheme dynamically determines bus holding times at a route's control points based on real-time headway information. The method requires less slack than the conventional, schedule-based approach to produce headways within a given tolerance. This allows buses to travel faster than with the conventional approach, reducing in-vehicle passenger delay and increasing bus productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Daganzo, Carlos F., 2009. "A headway-based approach to eliminate bus bunching: Systematic analysis and comparisons," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 43(10), pages 913-921, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transb:v:43:y:2009:i:10:p:913-921
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    References listed on IDEAS

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