Estimating Running Time and Demand for a Bus Rapid Transit Corridor
Principal Investigator:
John Hourdos, Director, MN Traffic Observatory, Civil Engineering
Co-Investigator:
- Ahmed El-Geneidy , Former University Researcher, Civil Engineering
Project Summary:
The goal of this research is to estimate running time and potential passenger demand for a proposed Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor. The proposed BRT service will serve the area around Highway 81 in the Twin Cities region. Because no service currently exists along the study corridor, except for a small portion (route 14), running time is estimated based existing transit service running along similar corridors in the region (Highway 47 where routes 10 and 854 are already in service is a suggested route) and through utilization of probe vehicles running along both corridors to to establish a benchmark for comparison between the two corridors. Meanwhile demand will be predicted based on frequency and reliability of service and socio-demographic characteristics of the region around the corridor. Running time and demand models produced from the study can be integrated with other cost benefit software that evaluates the effects of intelligent transportation systems technologies on BRT running time (IBAT). Finally, sensitivity analysis will be developed to evaluate different scenarios of changes to service specification that can help improving running time and increasing passenger demand.
Sponsors:
- Hennepin County
Project Details:
- Start date: 07/2006
- Project Status: Active
- Research Area: Transportation Safety and Traffic Flow