Effectiveness of Bus Signal Priority : Final Report

Effectiveness of Bus Signal Priority (BSP) study evaluates BSPs impact on traffic operations. The goal was to examine how different situations, such as the level of congestion, placement of bus stops, presence of express bus service, and number of transit vehicles on route, require different techniques of BSP such as real-time or fixed-time based control. Those techniques also utilize a variety of different control strategies such as phase suppression, synchronization, compensation, and green recall. In order to guide transportation agencies in this decision-making process, a framework for an ideal bus priority system was developed. Based upon that information, the Pre-Implementation Checklist was designed. The checklist focuses on the most critical factors in BSP and recommends pursuing BSP if an area has enough characteristics in place to make BSP effective. A set of Operational and Design Guidelines for BSP were developed to assist an agency in choosing the most appropiate BSP method that complements the area characteristics. To establish how BSP can be most effective, ten transit professionals (planners and engineers) involved in installing BSP projects were interviewed. Five agencies utilizing BSP around the country were studied to determine which types of priority are used in certain conditions and what technology is being implemented.\n