TRANSIT SIGNAL PRIORITY : A COMPARISON OF RECENT AND FUTURE IMPLEMENTATIONS

Abstract

The deployment of advanced traffic signal controllers, automatic vehicle location (AVL) systems for bus transit and improved bus detection technology has resulted in more jurisdictions considering and deploying transit signal priority (TSP) for buses. Comparisons among deployments of transit signal priority (TSP) provide useful insights for future deployments. Factors for consideration in designing new TSP systems include the use of AVL, transit vehicle detection, traffic controller functionality, traffic signal priority schemes, and performance measures. This paper provides a comparison of experiences in Toronto, ON, Snohomish County (a county north of Seattle, WA), and Vancouver, BC. For each jurisdiction, an overview of the project is provided including a description of the roadside vehicle, and central systems. Control strategy, operations institutional arrangements and key lessons learned are also presented. The last section contrasts the experiences in each jurisdiction and provides factors to consider in future implementations