Performance Evaluation of Bus Routes Using Automatic Vehicle Location Data

Abstract

Real survey data are of considerable significance for transit planners and operators to assess the performance of a bus route and then improve its level of service. Automatic vehicle location (AVL) system is a convenient tool to collect a large amount of real data from buses. This paper aims to propose a methodology to evaluate the operational performance of a bus route based on AVL data. First, several statistical indexes are selected for the evaluation, including percentile travel times, coefficient of variation (COV) of travel times, and average commercial speed and travel time distribution. Moreover, spatial and temporal features of travel time variation and transit regulation indexes are analyzed. Then the bus route with transit signal priority and dedicated bus lane in Suzhou, China, is taken as a case study to validate the proposed methodology. Numerical tests indicate that the most influential feature of travel time is its spatial and temporal patterns, which vary across segments and time-of-day intervals. Bus lane violation and route repetition may undermine the efficiency of priority measures. In addition, the schedule design has important impacts on the adherence and headway regularity.