A comprehensive strategy for transit signal priority

Transit Signal Priority (TSP) has been deployed in many cities in the North America and the world as a tool to improve transit competitiveness. A number of previous researches have shown that the impacts and effectiveness of a TSP application would depend largely on its surrounding traffic environment. This research attempts to address this issue further by investigating a number of traffic parameters' influence on the impact and effectiveness of TSP applications. Transit priority schemes are tested with the 98 B-line rapid transit buses along Granville Street in the City of Vancouver as a case study. VISSIM, a micro-simulation software, is used to simulate the TSP operation on the corridor. An imaginary VISSIM simulation model, named the "NoTAC model", is developed to mimic and evaluate the influence of different traffic parameters on the TSP application. This model is developed to isolate the impact of a studied traffic parameter from other factors that would impact the influence of the studied parameter. Nine sets of experiments are performed to investigate how each studied traffic parameter influences the impacts and effectiveness of TSP. These traffic parameters include: Granville Street (or bus approach traffic) volume, B-Line bus headway, cross street volume/capacity ratio, left-turn and opposing-through volume, right-turn and pedestrian volume, bus stop and bus check-in detector location, TSP strategy (green extension and red truncation), recovery strategy, and signal coordination. Based on the results from these experiments, generic guidelines and decision rules for TSP application on Granville Street are recommended. In general, it is found that a TSP application would be most effective under a traffic condition that has moderate-to-heavy bus approach volume, little or no turning movement hindering the bus movement, slight-to- moderate cross street v/c ratio, farside bus stop, and signal coordination for traffic running in the peak direction. Most importantly, TSP should be avoided under conditions that would generate significant adverse impacts on the cross streets.Applied Science, Faculty ofCivil Engineering, Department ofGraduat