PRIORITY FOR BUSES AND TRAMS AS AN INTEGRATED CONCEPT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL-FRIENDLY CITY TRAFFIC

The Austrian city of Wiener Neustadt (40,000 inhabitants) has re-oriented its traffic policy with an emphasis on environmentally-friendly traffic management. An important consequence of this is a model project to give priority to bus traffic. All buses are equipped with an announcement (logging-on) device for traffic lights. When a bus is logged-on at a crossing, the signal program is switched by phase extension, phase cut-off or change of phase sequence - so that every bus can pass over the crossing without waiting. For this purpose, a control strategy with decision logic has been developed. The model project has been in a test phase for three months. Preliminary results show that buses are considerably faster, punctuality is greatly improved and the number of passengers has increased by 30 per cent. For the bus company, this means greater productivity; better service is possible with fewer buses. Experience and the effects of the model project on the environment are now being analysed. The employment of electronic aids to improve traffic conditions is by no means exhausted. Systems which only increase the capacity of motorized traffic as a rule do not lead to environment-friendly city traffic. In this report, the principle of announcement (logging on) and technical traffic planning are presented. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, see IRRD abstract 868345.