Bus transit travel time reliability evaluation based on automatic vehicle location data

In order to provide important parameters for schedule designing, decision-making bases for transit operation management and references for passengers traveling by bus, bus transit travel time reliability is analyzed and evaluated based on automatic vehicle location （AVL） data. Based on the statistical analysis of the bus transit travel time, six indices including the coefficient of variance, the width of travel time distribution, the mean commercial speed, the congestion frequency, the planning time index and the buffer time index are proposed. Moreover, a framework for evaluating bus transit travel time reliability is constructed. Finally, a case study on a certain bus route in Suzhou is conducted. Results show that the proposed evaluation index system is simple and intuitive, and it can effectively reflect the efficiency and stability of bus operations. And a distinguishing feature of bus transit travel time reliability is the temporal pattern. It varies across different time periods.

Traffic Data： Bluetooth Sensors vs. Crowdsourcing——A Comparative Study to Calculate Travel Time Reliability in Calgary, Alberta, Canada

The City of Calgary did a comparative study between two techniques of traffic data collection： Bluetooth sensors and crowdsourcing, for measuring travel time reliability on two goods movement corridors in Calgary, Alberta. To estimate travel time and speed, we used the output of BIuFAX sensors, which were operated by monitoring Bluetooth signals at several points along a roadway. On the other hand, TomTom historical traffic data were extracted from the TomTom Traffic Stats portal. To calculate travel time reliability, we applied the buffer index, and the planning time index recommended by FHWA （Federal Highway Administration）. The Bluetooth traffic data were presumed as the benchmark in this study. Unlike the TomTom traffic data, the data provided by the Bluetooth technology met the minimum recommended sample size requirement, although data processing was time consuming and impractical for long study periods. Our study results showed that crowdsourcing technique can be a viable alternative and provide travel time reliability estimates with a reasonable accuracy, when there are adequate numbers of records registered. However, the TomTom sample sizes in Calgary were not large enough to provide a statistically reliable method of providing travel time indices. Further researches may verify the accuracy of crowdsourcing technologies for travel time studies.

Impacts of Bus Lane on Bus Travel Time Reliability:a Case Study in Shenzhen

The aim of the paper is to evaluate the impacts of bus lane on bus travel time reliability.The data used are the Geographic Positioning System(GPS) data of two bus lines running parallel streets in Shenzhen,China,one of which is a bus lane and the other is a regular lane.Two linear regression models are developed to evaluate the influence of bus lane which has a separated right of way.Other factors including running direction,day of week,time of day,dwell time,and delay at the start point are also considered in the model.Without published time tables,coefficient of variance(CV) of travel time is employed to explore the impacts of bus lane.The results indicate that bus lane can save 22.0% of travel time,reduce 11.5% of the CV of travel time,and decrease the variance of headway by 17.4%.The analysis on bus travel time reliability could help operators and drivers improve the quality of transit service.It also sheds light on how to assess the effectiveness of bus lane for transit planners and service operators.

Alpha-reliable combined mean traffic equilibrium model with stochastic travel times

Based on the reliability budget and percentile travel time(PTT) concept, a new travel time index named combined mean travel time(CMTT) under stochastic traffic network was proposed. CMTT here was defined as the convex combination of the conditional expectations of PTT-below and PTT-excess travel times. The former was designed as a risk-optimistic travel time index, and the latter was a risk-pessimistic one. Hence, CMTT was able to describe various routing risk-attitudes. The central idea of CMTT was comprehensively illustrated and the difference among the existing travel time indices was analyzed. The Wardropian combined mean traffic equilibrium(CMTE) model was formulated as a variational inequality and solved via an alternating direction algorithm nesting extra-gradient projection process. Some mathematical properties of CMTT and CMTE model were rigorously proved. Finally, a numerical example was performed to characterize the CMTE network. It is founded that that risk-pessimism is of more benefit to a modest(or low) congestion and risk network, however, it changes to be risk-optimism for a high congestion and risk network.

A self-regulating pairwise swapping algorithm to search reliability-based user equilibrium

The violation of monotonicity on reliability measures(RMs)usually makes the mathematical programming algorithms less efficient in solving the reliability-based user equilibrium(RUE)problem.The swapping algorithms provide a simple and convenient alternative to search traffic equilibrium since they are derivative-free and require weaker monotonicity.However,the existing swapping algorithms are usually based on linear swapping processes which cannot naturally avoid overswapping,and the step-size parameter update methods do not take the swapping feature into account.In this paper,we suggest a self-regulating pairwise swapping algorithm(SRPSA)to search RUE.SRPSA comprises an RM-based pairwise swapping process(RMPSP),a parameter self-diminishing operator and a termination criterion.SRPSA does not need to check the feasibility of either solutions or step-size parameter.It is suggested from the numerical analyses that SRPSA is effective and can swap to the quasi-RUE very fast.Therefore,SRPSA offers a good approach to generate initial points for those superior local search algorithms.

Reliability-based congestion pricing model under endogenous equilibrated market penetration and compliance rate of ATIS

A reliability-based stochastic system optimum congestion pricing(SSOCP) model with endogenous market penetration and compliance rate in an advanced traveler information systems(ATIS) environment was proposed. All travelers were divided into two classes. The first guided travelers were referred to as the equipped travelers who follow ATIS advice, while the second unguided travelers were referred to as the unequipped travelers and the equipped travelers who do not follow the ATIS advice(also referred to as non-complied travelers). Travelers were assumed to take travel time, congestion pricing, and travel time reliability into account when making travel route choice decisions. In order to arrive at on time, travelers needed to allow for a safety margin to their trip.The market penetration of ATIS was determined by a continuous increasing function of the information benefit, and the ATIS compliance rate of equipped travelers was given as the probability of the actually experienced travel costs of guided travelers less than or equal to those of unguided travelers. The analysis results could enhance our understanding of the effect of travel demand level and travel time reliability confidence level on the ATIS market penetration and compliance rate; and the effect of travel time perception variation of guided and unguided travelers on the mean travel cost savings(MTCS) of the equipped travelers, the ATIS market penetration, compliance rate, and the total network effective travel time(TNETT).

Travel time reliability with and without the dynamic use of hard shoulder:Field assessment from a French motorway

Traffic management aims to ensure a high quality of service for most users by decreasing congestion and increasing safety. However, uncertainty regarding travel time decreases the quality of service and leads end-users to change their routes and schedules even when the average travel time is low, Indicators describing travel time reliability are being developed and should be used in the future both for the optimization and the assessment of active traffic management operation. This paper describes a managed lane experience on a motorway weaving section in France - hard shoulder running operation in rush hours. The paper is focused on travel time reliability indicators and their use for reliability assessment. It provides some discussions about the advantages and drawbacks of reliability indicators under different traffic conditions. It particularly shows the difference between using buffer times and buffer indexes. The paper also discusses the difficulty of interpreting the skew of travel time distribution for travel reliability,

Assessing travel time reliability implications due to roadworks on private vehicles and public transport services in urban road networks

Roadworks are perhaps the most controversial topic in transport professional field. On one hand, they are a necessity to assure the current and future functionality of the traffic network, while on the other, they are seen as a major disturbance by road users with concerns for excessive travel time delays. The impact of roadworks is usually analysed at a local level however the network-wide effects are crucial to ensure reliable travel times. Moreover the analysis usually focusses on private cars and the reliability impact on public transport services are too important to ignore. This paper investigates the impact of roadworks undertaken on a given road link over wider parts of the network and assesses travel time reliability for both cars and buses. This research involves setting up of a con- ventional network assignment model to arrive at the route choice of drivers as a result of the roadworks and then integrates the outcomes with a microsimulation model to generate space-time trajectories to arrive at travel times of individual vehicles. We adopted a reli- ability measure from the literature to compute travel time reliability of a given type of vehicle by unique origin-destination （O-D） pair combinations and also more generally to provide a wider picture at an aggregated network level. The method was tested on a real life network in England, and travel time reliability results were analysed both at the network scale and significant O-D pair level for private cars and bus routes.

Understanding network travel time reliability with on-demand ride service data

Travel time reliability is of increasing importance for travelers, shippers, and transportation managers because traffic congestion has become worse in major urban areas in recent years. To better evaluate the urban network-wide travel time reliability, five indices based on the emerging on-demand ride service data are proposed:network free flow time rate(NFFTR), network travel time rate(NTTR), network planning time rate(NPTR), network buffer time rate(NBTR), and network buffer time rate index(NBTRI). These indices take into account the probability distribution of the travel time rate(i.e., travel time spent for the unit distance, in min/km) of each origindestination(OD) pair in the road network. We use realworld data extracted from DiDi-Chuxing, which is the largest on-demand ride service platform in China. For demonstrative purposes, the network-wide travel time reliability of Beijing is analyzed in detail from two dimensions of time and space. The results show that the road network is more unreliable in AM/PM peaks than other time periods, and the most reliable time period is the early morning. Additionally, we can find that the central region is more unreliable than other regions of the city based on the spatial analysis results. The proposed network travel time reliability indices provide insights for the comprehensive evaluation of the road network traffic dynamics and day-to-day travel time variations.