An Optimal Analytical Approach to Design a Transit Exclusive Lane Network

Urban traffic congestion is a major challenge in almost all cities. Transit vehicles, with higher passenger capacities than personal cars, are capable of increasing the passenger throughput of roads. This higher capacity justifies the introduction of transit exclusive lanes. This study is aimed at presenting an analytical approach to design the network of transit exclusive lanes. The presented approach would identify the optimal combination of transit exclusive lanes, considering the benefits of all network users. The presented method involves the effects of shift in modal split, private car route choice, and transit route choice. The problem is formulated in form of a bi-level optimization with integer variables. A solution algorithm based on a decomposition method is proposed. The presented approach is applied to an example network and results are discussed.

Keywords:

road space allocation , exclusive lane , transit network