Impacts of Bus Lane on Bus Travel Time Reliability: a Case Study in Shenzhen

The aim of the paper is to evaluate the impacts of bus lane on bus travel time reliability. The data used are the Geographic Positioning System (GPS) data of two bus lines running parallel streets in Shenzhen, China, one of which is a bus lane and the other is a regular lane. Two linear regression models are developed to evaluate the influence of bus lane which has a separated right of way. Other factors including running direction, day of week, time of day, dwell time, and delay at the start point are also considered in the model. Without published time tables, coefficient of variance (CV) of travel time is employed to explore the impacts of bus lane. The results indicate that bus lane can save 22.0% of travel time, reduce 11.5% of the CV of travel time, and decrease the variance of headway by 17.4%. The analysis on bus travel time reliability could help operators and drivers improve the quality of transit service. It also sheds light on how to assess the effectiveness of bus lane for transit planners and service operators.