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Vancouver Area Smart Trek
Initiative 6
Transit Priority
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Public transit plays an important role in passenger transportation in Clark County. The C-TRAN bus system carries over six million passengers per year on 29 routes. Priority measures for C-TRAN buses can make transit more attractive to travelers by helping make bus travel times shorter and more consistent.
In the realm of Intelligent Transportation Systems, buses can benefit from active priority at traffic signals. C-TRAN buses currently do not receive active priority treatment at traffic signals, which would involve installation of new or upgraded equipment at traffic signals and on buses.
Needs
Based on input from the stakeholders and through workshops, the following needs have been identified:
- Improve travel time
- Coordinate the operation of transit priority equipment with local agencies
- Increase transit ridership
- Improve transit reliability in congested environments
Criteria
The following list presents measures that can be used to evaluate transit priority projects. The list includes both qualitative and quantifiable measures. Evaluations of performance need not quantify every measure in this list.
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- Transit ridership
- Transfer time
- Individual travel time
- Individual travel time variability
- Operates across jurisdictional boundaries
- Number of stops for transit
- Number of stops for vehicles
- Vehicle hours of delay
Strategies
- Provide Conditional Signal Priority for Selected C-TRAN Buses
- This strategy would provide priority to only those C-TRAN buses that are running behind schedule. Instead of the emitter on the bus being permanently on, it would be switched on and off by a data processor on the bus that tracks the vehicle’s schedule adherence. This would be similar to the approach planned by Tri-Met.
- Upgrade Bus Detection Equipment for Distance-Sensitive Priority
- This strategy would upgrade receivers (discriminators) at traffic signals, to the type that is distance (range) sensitive. This prevents the bus from being detected until it is a predetermined distance from the intersection, thus enabling priority to be implemented only when needed instead of as soon as the bus comes into view, which can be wasteful in some cases.
- Extend Transit Priority to Additional C-TRAN Routes
- This strategy would add emitters to buses used on additional routes – those deemed most in need of signal priority or most suited to initial implementation.