Transit signal priority to improve the flow of buses in Brisbane

This project will continue to develop and test a methodology to generate and evaluate strategies to improve the flow of buses in Brisbane. The strategies include, but are not limited to, providing priority to buses and pedestrians and enhancing travel time reliability and safety.

In previous work completed in 2023 a strategic traffic corridor was chosen for evaluation, and a traffic flow simulation model was developed and calibrated for the corridor, and optimisation algorithms were developed and tested. The outcome from the previous work was limited to Transit Signal Priority (TSP) on isolated intersections using a fraction of possible strategies.

This project will enhance the development and include coordinated optimisation-based TSP and to access travel time reliability through corridors. It will study the impact of various levels of detection across the intersections and traffic corridor.

Participants

• Brisbane City Council
• Queensland University of Technology
  

Project background

It is important to increase bus ridership to improve overall traffic system performance, promote sustainability, and better use of available resources and capacity. Maximising the people moving productivity of a transport corridor involves retaining and attracting bus riders by providing a competitive level of service relative to alternative modes.

Key aspects required to provide adequate bus priority are the optimisation of traffic signal settings and the effective and safe management of pedestrian flows. Generation and evaluation of strategies to improve traffic require adequate data, a realistic representation of the real system, and optimisation tools to determine the best interventions (e.g., signal settings) to deploy.

This project seeks to continue the development and testing of a methodology and framework developed by QUT and Brisbane City Council (Council) to generate and evaluate various strategies to improve the flow of buses and their travel time reliability. These strategies will be used to inform the development and implementation of Council’s Smart Suburban Corridors project.

Project objective

1. Develop and test an optimisation framework to determine traffic signal settings that enable TSP while minimising overall delay.
2. Expand the framework to relax or remove some of the current assumptions including capabilities to: (i) change the sequence of signal phases, (ii) consider variable arrival traffic flow rates, and (iii) consider multiple buses and the corresponding TSP strategies within one signal cycle if required.
3. Study the impact of various levels of detection across the intersection and traffic corridor.
4. Access travel time reliability across various alternatives to provide TSP.

Please note …

This page will be a living record of this project. As it matures, hits milestones, etc., we’ll continue to add information, links, images, interviews and more. Watch this space!