A self-coordinating bus route to resist bus bunching
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
2012
Subject Area
mode - bus, place - north america, operations - scheduling, operations - reliability
Keywords
Bus bunching, Transit operations, Headway control, Adaptive control, Self-organization
Abstract
The primary challenge for an urban bus system is to maintain constant headways between successive buses. Most bus systems try to achieve this by adherence to a schedule; but this is undermined by the tendency of headways to collapse, so that buses travel in bunches. To counter this, we propose a new method of coördinating buses. Our method abandons the idea of a schedule and even any a priori target headway. Under our scheme headways are dynamically self-equalizing and the natural headway of the system tends to emerge spontaneously. Headways also become self-correcting in that after disturbances they reëqualize without intervention by management or even awareness of the drivers.
We report on a successful implementation to control a bus route in Atlanta.
Rights
Permission to publish the abstract has been given by Elsevier, copyright remains with them.
Recommended Citation
Bartholdi, J.J. (III)., & Eisenstein, D.D. (2012). A self-coordinating bus route to resist bus bunching. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Vol. 46, (4), pp. 481-491.
Comments
Transportation Research Part B Home Page:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01912615