URBAN BUS ROUTE PLANNING AND ANALYSIS

Abstract

Urban bus transport plays an important part in the efficient functioning of most urban activities„ Comprehen-s sive bus transportation plans are required for most of the Indian cities, due to increase in Urban Passenger demand, The Urban bus transport problems can be viewed from two sides, The first is the users view that there are too few facilities at the places where they are needed most„ On the other hand the bus ope ra.t ors have the opinion that there are too many passengers at the places where they are not expected and of course both are correct., The varied traffic conditions, bus dimensions and the passenger loading and unloading conditions affect the passenger service time„ A set of empirical equations for bus passenger service time have been.developed for peak and off peak hours for boarding and alighting conditions„ Some empirical models of transit mean journey time and journey time deviation have also been developed for peak and off peak hours for inbound as well as outbound trips„ Mean jour~.iey time provides the operator with information on adherence to schedule , Journey time deviation measures the uncertainity in journey time to each location and the degree to which the variation in journey time on each link propa~ gates as the vehicle travels, further down the route A realistic representation of journey time of buses bet- ween stops can be made only by knowing the travelling speeds of buses which depend upon the mixed traffic conditions and the density of traffics To analyse DTC bus behaviour on the selected route, densities and volumes have been found for peak and off peak conditions. Average journey speed and average running speed albngwith journey speed3 and running speeds of buses have also been found, Link traffic flow relationships between standard deviation of link travel times and each of the mean link travel time and the link length have been investigated using the collected data. Time-space diagrams, passenger loading and unloading at each bus stop of the selected route were also developed. Theoretical aspects regarding network planning, route rationalisation, planning of bus stops, bus depots and the various bus route planning approaches have been discussed.