This paper discusses the issue of the importance of bus stops on bus operations and vice versa, and why bus stops should be included as the central element of bus priority schemes. As a result, the importance of designing bus stops is raised as the most important factor for improving the bus system. Most previous research on bus stops has been directed towards bus progression and bus reliability problems. The main concern has been to maintain the regular headways along a route in order to adhere to bus schedules and to reduce waiting times at bus stops. Much analytical work and many simulation models have been developed to address these problems. In practice, the main approaches have involved the implementation of bus priorities especially bus lanes and priorities at traffic signals. However, although these measures may help the progression of buses along a route, they have little impact on the service to passengers at bus stops. A bus spends a large proportion of its time in operation at bus stops and these are the cause of many unnecessary delays because of, for example, interference between buses, difficulties for buses to regain the traffic stream on leaving the stop and poor co-ordination of buses at the stops. The importance of bus stop design is then illustrated with examples from simulation models and on-street practice. Results are given which show the nature of the improvements that can be made to a bus system as a result of taking into account a clear understanding of bus stop operations. These include indications of which demand pattern will require another berth, when the platform should be extended and by how much, how long the gap should be between berths of a multiple bus stop and how the bus stop should operate to obtain a given performance.
Abstract