Analysis of bus priority schemes in Singapore

• Main Author: Chen, Qing.
• Other Authors: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Civil engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/52888
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Improving the conditions for public transport appears to be one of the key aspects regarding the decrease in urban traffic congestion. The implementation of bus lane scheme and traffic signal priority are the most used solutions on this field. In this study, we intended to assess the feasibility of bus priority schemes in Singapore and evaluate their benefits and adverse effects. While bus priority schemes have indeed been effective as traffic management measures, not all their impacts on general traffic have been fully investigated. Two bus lanes at different locations and one ordinary road were selected and studied to investigate their respective performances. Our evaluation of the feasibility of the tested priority schemes will be based on the mathematical theories in terms of passenger flow and change of private traffic capacity. The conditions of one bus lane studied during peak hours were, however not found to satisfy the requirements of implementing a bus lane, and significant impacts caused by the bus lane scheme were observed on site. The proposed adjustment to this existing scheme was then tested by simulating the hypothetical scenario. Two scenarios, “without” and “with” bus lane, were simulated and their results compared. The work considered the traffic models, namely VISSIM (micro simulation model). The “with” and “without” bus lane scenarios were evaluated by microscopic traffic simulation model, VISSIM. The result indicates that in the morning peak hour the difference in average bus travel time between the “with” and “without” bus lane scenarios is greater (7.5% increase) than that of private traffic (3.2% decrease), while for the afternoon peak hour case, only an 2.5% increase for bus and 9.5% decrease for private traffic is registered. The findings of this study aim to contribute to the discussion regarding the subject of the bus priority scheme in Singapore.