Using innovative data streams to measure and evaluate arterial traffic congestion and transportation performance across regional networks

Description

Travel time and operating speed influence transit service attractiveness, operating cost and system efficiency. As part
of their bus dispatch system (BDS), the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet) has
been archiving automatic vehicle location (AVL) and automatic passenger count (APC) data for all bus trips at the
stop level since 1997. In 2014, a new and higher-resolution bus AVL data collection system was fully implemented.
The new AVL system provides stop-level data as well as five-second resolution (5-SR) bus position data between
stops. This research project explored potential applications of the new data for assessing transit performance and for
estimating transportation system performance measures for urban streets and arterials. Results suggest that the 5-SR
data provides high-resolution time and position information which can be used to determine bus travel speeds
between bus stops, identify speed breakdowns, and estimate intersection signal/queuing delays.

Explore more from our collection.