The St. Cloud, Minnesota, Metropolitan Transit Commission (MTC) has begun a unique transit priority system deployment, encompassing an entire system in a small urban area. Transit priority was one component of a Traffic Operations and Communications Center (TOCC) project in the St. Cloud urban area, which is in turn part of a wider on-going ITS deployment in urban areas of outstate Minnesota. A pilot test explored feasibility of transit priority for the St. Cloud area. A subsequent study of requirements and anticipated results of full system deployment included evaluation of transit priority technology, utilizing existing traffic signal control and emergency vehicle preemption system equipment. Pilot test and study results indicated real potential for improving fixed route bus service reliability. Based on these results and those of a full-system engineering study, the MTC and the other involved agencies are proceeding with full system deployment.
Samenvatting