Micro Simulation based Performance Evaluation of Delhi Bus Rapid Transit Corridor

AbstractBus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) is the most popular form of rapid public transit system with large capacities and more importantly minimal capital costs compared to other forms of public transportation system, which makes it favourable for developing nations such as India, China and Brazil. BRTS can be effectively deployed to provide efficient and near door-to door to services meeting the daily commute needs of the citizens. However, the performance evaluation of BRT systems is essentially required to measure its effectiveness and thus monitor its efficiency. Two types of BRTS namely, Closed and Open BRTS are functional in some of the Indian cities with the most popular being the Ahmedabad BRTS wherein the closed BRTS network is in vogue whereas the Delhi BRTS being a pilot corridor only as of now is an Open BRTS. Moreover, ten more BRTS are in the pipeline for many other cities in India. Considering this the performance evaluation of the BRT systems presently functional in the Indian traffic conditions becomes very vital. Various approaches have been deployed elsewhere for evaluating the performance of BRT systems and these are based on qualitative, quantitative and economic perspectives. The quantitative perspective mainly considers engineering parameters like speed, travel time, delay and capacity. In order to evaluate the quantitatively establish the performance measures of the BRT system functional in the Indian cities, an innovative approach based on scientific reasoning is essential and the same has been evolved in this paper.In the present study, a quantitative performance approach using micro-simulation technique has been formulated aimed to evaluating the open system BRT corridor functioning in Delhi. Delhi BRT corridor is currently operational for a length of 5.8km from Ambedkar Nagar to Moolchand. 16-hour Classified Traffic Volume data was collected on this corridor covering the six major intersections namely, Ambedkar Nagar, Sheikh Sarai, Press Enclave, Chirag Delhi, Siri Fort and G K-I Intersection. Speed and delay data was collected using GPS based Velocity-Box (V-Box) apparatus for bus and car modes. Signal time and signal phasing data collected at above mentioned intersections was collected to simulate the real traffic movement on the study corridor. Furthermore, other road dimensional parameters such as number of lanes, location of bottle necks, width of bus lanes and mixed vehicle lanes, and location of bus stops was collected. In the present study, a quantitative performance approach using micro-simulation technique has been formulated aimed to evaluating the open system BRT corridor functioning in Delhi. Delhi BRT corridor is currently operational for a length of 5.8km from Ambedkar Nagar to Moolchand. 16-hour Classified Traffic Volume data was collected on this corridor covering the six major intersections namely, Ambedkar Nagar, Sheikh Sarai, Press Enclave, Chirag Delhi, Siri Fort and G K-I Intersection. Speed and delay data was collected using GPS based Velocity-Box (V-Box) apparatus for bus and car modes. Signal time and signal phasing data collected at above mentioned intersections was collected to simulate the real traffic movement on the study corridor. Furthermore, other road dimensional parameters such as number of lanes, location of bottle necks, width of bus lanes and mixed vehicle lanes, and location of bus stops was collected.A base network of the BRT corridor has been created in VISSIM simulation software and the morning traffic volume data spread over from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM has been considered for simulation. The model parameters have been calibrated for a trap length of 50 meters by comparing the simulated results with the observed field data such as traffic volume and traffic speeds. Since the random seed value inputted during VISSIM largely governs the realization of the stochastic quantities in VISSIM which includes the generation of simulated traffic flows during the simulation process as well as the traffic parameters, it was inferred during this study an average of seven runs (using varying random seed values) is essentially required to arrive at values closer to the observed traffic flows (Gautam Raj, 2013). Subsequently, the model has been validated for the entire corridor which also encompassed establishing statistical significance by using GEH statistics. The GEH is a widely used statistics for comparing the modelled values and observed values evolved through simulation tools. After validation, the developed model has been deployed to evaluate the performance of the BRT corridor by considering evaluation parameters such as travel time and speed. Average speed of the vehicles obtained from VISSIM are compared with the average speed of vehicles (Car and Bus) observed on BRT corridor through speed and delay studies. Based on the results derived in this paper, it can be concluded that the micro simulation based technique is the most suited approach to evaluate the performance of BRT corridor for the Indian cities