Signal Design Of A Busy Intersection Using Transyt

Abstract

In the last decade increasing congestion problems on urban streets combined
with environmental concerns and reduced funds for adding road capacity have evoked
an interest in promoting Public Transport (PT) all over Western Europe. There have also
been shifts in focus from building metros to high quality surface transport, e.g. Bus
Rapid Transit (BRT) and/or tram lines that share intersections with other road traffic.
One of the most important factors that is known to influence modal choice is the travel
time ratio between car and PT travel. It is also known that delay at signalised
intersections constitutes a large part of PT journey time in urban areas. One way to
reduce delay and improve service regularity for PT at a relatively low cost to other
traffic is to introduce PT priority at traffic signals (Bång 1987; Al-Mudhaffar & Bang
2006; Zlatkovic, Martin & Stevanovic 2009). Traffic signals are traditionally designed to
minimise the delay per vehicle.

The overall aim of this thesis is to enhance the knowledge regarding effective
strategies for conditional priority of public transport in traffic signals; i.e. how to give
better benefits to public transport while minimising negative effects to other traffic. Subaims, included in the licentiate part of the work, in order to review the criteria for and
fundamentals of public transport priority in traffic signals (PTSP) and analyse the
impacts of different PTSP priority functions/strategies in a coordinated signal system
based on simulation trials.