Environmental effect of bus priority measures applied on a road network in Santiago, Chile.

Karekla Xenia; Fernandez, Rodrigo; Tyler, Nick

Keywords: traffic simulation, energy consumption, bus lane, carbon emissions, bus priority, bus signal priority

Abstract

Air pollution is at the highest levels ever and there is currently a world initiative by transport engineers and urban planners in redesigning public transport modes and cities to become more sustainable and environmentally friendly. The environmental impact of everyday activities is more apparent in developing cities which take longer to adapt to advanced methods of running public transport modes. This study aims to investigate the reduction of bus energy consumption and carbon emissions through bus priority measures in a bus route in the city of Santiago, Chile. Two bus priority schemes are tested in this study: Bus Only Lanes and Fixed-Time Bus Signal Priority. The microscopic traffic simulator TSIS-CORSIM is used to quantify the environmental impact of these schemes. The results have shown that both schemes lead to lower fuel consumption and emissions, especially for the bus service. The environmental improvements are mostly apparent at traffic flows below 1000 veh/h, with clear benefits for both the bus service and passenger cars when dedicated bus lanes are included in the road infrastructure.

Más información

Título de la Revista: TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH RECORD
Volumen: 2672(8)
Editorial: NATL ACAD SCIENCES
Fecha de publicación: 2018
Página de inicio: 135
Página final: 142
Idioma: Inglés
URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/0361198118784134
Notas: ISI