Impact of exclusive bus lanes on traffic performance in Urban areas

Abstract

With the anticipated growth rates within cities in the UAE, there is a need for an efficient public transportation system including busses. One of the possible approaches to improve the bus system performance in the UAE is the use of exclusive bus lanes (XBLs). This study investigates the impact of XBLs on urban road network performance under different traffic conditions using the micro-simulation software, VISSIM. It considers different parameters such as demand-to-capacity ratio D/C, traffic turning percentages, and bus headway and direction. Results show that the XBLs are effective at D/C ratio of 0.80 or more. They also indicate that the turning percentages at the intersections have a significant impact on the XBLs performance. The XBLs were effective for the buses turning left for D/C ratio of 1.15 of the main road. Furthermore, the performance of vehicles in adjacent lanes deteriorates after the implementation of XBLs for all D/C ratios and the average deterioration percentages of vehicles' travel time, intersection delay, and average speed are +5%, +11%, and -5%, respectively.