Real-Time Integrated Holding and Priority Control Strategy for Transit Systems

This paper presents a real-time integrated holding and priority control strategy for bus rapid transit (BRT) and high-frequency segregated transit systems, in a network approach (considering the whole transit circuit). The integrated control strategy implements simultaneously the required bus headway corrections and the bus priority through signalized intersections with the objective of minimizing the total delay of passengers that are onboard and at stops. The developed model, in the form of a mathematical programming problem, presents peculiarities for describing the behavior of BRT and transit systems such as bus capacity, differentiation between passenger boarding and alighting processes in single stops, terminals and stations, and bus priority at signalized intersections. The iterative procedure proposed for solving the optimization problem brings about simplicity and efficiency for real-time applications. The results obtained by simulation for a transit scenario of the trunk line 10 of the city of Blumenau, Santa Catarina, Brazil, show the efficiency of the proposed strategy and potential of practical application.