Geoff
Lake - Project Manager, Roads and Traffic Authority of NSW, Sydney
Australia
Tom van Drempt - Traffic Engineer,
State Transit Authority of NSW, Sydney Australia
The Roads and Traffic Authority of New
South Wales (RTA) manages the operation, maintenance and enhancement
of 17,670km of State Roads, including 3,106km of National Highways.
This includes facilities such as traffic lights, roundabouts,
signs and line-marking. Roads in which the RTA has an interest
include 4,588 bridges, including major culverts, and nine vehicular
ferries. The RTA road network includes 75k of bus lanes and 105km
of transit lanes. There are now approximately 70 sets of traffic
signals which include B-Signals for bus priority.
State Transit Manages the largest bus
and ferry operation in Australia. State Transit’s bus fleet
totals 1,935 buses operating on more than 300 routes in the Sydney
metropolitan area extending to Parramatta in the west. Every working
day, the bus and ferry fleet delivers 16,000 trips and carries
650,000 passengers. This equates to more than 200 million passengers
every year.
Traffic congestion impacts on bus services
by reducing reliability, increasing running times and increasing
operating costs for bus operators. Providing bus lanes is expensive
and often the space is not available. While advantageous for public
transport, installing B-Signals reduces green time for other movements
at signalised intersections, which can reduce the performance
of a congested network. Electronic bus priority alleviates these
problems by opening communication between the bus and the traffic
signals. Priority can be given to all buses or selected buses
such as those that are running behind schedule.
The RTA is developing the Public Transport
Information and Priority System (PTIPS) project to improve the
reliability of public transport services, increase passenger confidence
and satisfaction. From the network provider’s point of view
this will improve the throughput of people through the network,
ensuring the road system is used to its maximum efficiency.
PTIPS is being trialled on the Sydney
Buses Route 400 which is a cross-regional service operating from
Burwood to Bondi Junction via Sydney Airport, major shopping centres
and the University of New South Wales. The Route 400 is a highly
patronised service which travels through different types of areas
(residential, town centre, open space). It passes through 81 sets
of traffic signals and currently has no fixed bus priority along
its route.
The bus priority system comprises two
major components: an on-board data collection and transmission
system and the centrally located PTIPS that analyses data received
from each bus.
The on-board system collects location,
time and route information from the fare collection system and
the global positioning system (GPS) technology. It then transmits
this information to PTIPS via a data radio service. PTIPS analyses
this information and if the bus satisfies the criteria for priority
it passes a priority request to Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic
System (SCATS).
This paper presents an account of the
goals of the system, the technology used, the challenges faced
in getting the trial up and running, and the future directions
for the system. The trial will be assessed in terms of its impact
on bus reliability, variance in bus travel times and delays on
crossing roads.
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