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182 Calculating bus station capacity

Design of bus station: a

case study in Brighton
Bhargav Adhvaryu, University of Cambridge, UK

This paper1 investigates the design of bus
stations in a physically constrained area through
a case study of Brighton Bus Station, which is
situated in the historic core of the city abutting
the railway station complex. Bus and passenger
data collection is primarily done manually and
is supplemented by videography. The analysis
of capacity of the existing bus station is
completed using microsimulation software. In
addition, a graphic simulation tool for tracking
the swept paths of buses, taxis, and lorries is
used to formulate the proposed physical layouts
for the bus station. The proposals were
evaluated using a simple evaluation
methodology developed in this study.

here are two key concerns in developing the proposals. Time periods associated with a bus stop

T The first is to generate workable solutions that are com-

patible with the existing physical constraints of the
area and the operational constraints of buses and taxis. The
A bus arrives at a bus stop and stops. The doors open and
passenger exchange takes place (ie, alighting and boarding of
passengers), which may be serial or parallel. Doors then close
second is to make the bus station more accessible to wheel- and the bus departs. The time elapsed during this period is
chair users. The study emphasises that the process of bus sta- known as dwell time (tdwell). Tyler (2002) has distinguished
tion design could be enhanced by use of simple analytical six time-periods associated with a bus stop, which are ex-
tools and hence need not be purely driven by architectural plained briefly as follows:
and urban design considerations.
1 Queuing time (tq) is the time spent by a bus in a queue
prior to entering the bus stop.
INTRODUCTION 2 Clearance time (tclear) is the minimum [theoretical] time
between the departure of one bus and the arrival of a sub-
This paper is based on a study undertaken on design of a bus sequent bus in the bus berth.
station in Brighton - a town about 100 km south of London. 3 Dead time (tdead) is the time that elapses in opening and
The author: The study covered the review of models for bus stop capacity closing of doors plus the time associated with extending
Bhargav Adhvaryu estimation, issues realting to adapting such models for esti- ramps/lifts/other equipment to facilitate alighting and
is Research mation of bus station capacity, use of a microsimulation boarding of disabled persons, if any.
Associate at the model for estimating capacity of existing situation and the 4 Passenger service time (tpst) is the time elapsed while pas-
Martin Centre for proposals, use of a graphic simulation tool for formulating senger exchange takes place.
Architectural and proposed physical layouts for the bus station, developing a 5 Internal delay (tint) is the time spent by a bus waiting to
Urban Studies, methodology to evaluate bus station designs, and taxi rank leave the bus berth after it is ready to leave, but cannot
Department of capacity estimation and its physical layout to the extent that actually leave as it is obstructed by other bus(es) in the
Architecture, it enhances the performance of the bus station. However, in bus stop area.
University of this paper the discussions on development of a method for 6 External delay (text) is the time spent by a bus waiting to
Cambridge since evaluation of bus station designs and capacity estimation for leave the bus berth after it is ready to leave, but cannot
Dec 2004. taxi ranks and its alternative physical layouts are omitted, be- actually leave as it is obstructed by other traffic outside
cause it would require a separate dedicated space. Also, only the bus stop area.
Before joining the
two layouts of bus stations out of the proposed four are in-
Martin Centre, he
cluded in this paper. The discussion on models for estimat- If we reflect back on the definition of dwell time discussed
was in India
ing bus stop capacity have able been considerably shortened above, it would constitute a sum of time periods 3 to 6
where he spent
in this paper. (above). Time periods 5 and 6 often occur concurrently, in
four years as a which case the higher of the two would be used in estimation
lecturer and four of dwell time. Clearance time has to be added to dwell time
years in an urban ESTIMATION OF BUS STOP CAPACITY: A to take into account the time taken to enter and leave the
planning BRIEF REVIEW berth. Thus, the simplest possible theoretical model for esti-
consultancy firm mating bus stop capacity may be given as:
as a project Estimation of bus stop capacity is now a well-researched
manager. He can field. There are various mathematical models available for
be contacted by estimating bus stop capacity. The theoretical basis for esti-
email at ba247 mating bus stop capacity is briefly explained below. How- The degree of saturation, which is a key performance mea-
@cam.ac.uk ever, firstly the time periods associated with a bus stop need sure of a bus stop defined as the ratio of flow to the theoreti-
to be highlighted. cal capacity can be found as:

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Bus station2.qxd 27/4/06 17:29 Page 183
Saturation = (Q/Qc) x 100 (%), where Q is the observed bus
flow.
Some models for estimating bus stop capacity
The Convoy Model
The Convoy Model which is based on the São Paulo (Brazil)
experience is given as:
where,
The Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) 2000 Model
The HCM 2000 Model (TRB, 2000) introduces a new concept
of using failure rate. Failure rate, which is derived from basic
statistics, is the probability that a queue of buses will not be
formed behind a bus stop. Za represents the area under one
tail of the normal curve beyond the acceptable levels of prob-
ability that a queue will form at a bus stop. Typical values of
Za are obtained from standard tables. Suggested values of Za
for CBD stops range from 1.44 to 1.04 resulting in probabili-
ties of 7.5% to 15.0%, respectively that queues will develop.
For outlying stops, 1.96 is suggested as the value of Za result-
ing in queues beyond bus stops only 2.5% of the times.
However, in general, Za values of 1.44 (representing 7.5%
probability) are acceptable.
The theoretical capacity of the berth is then given as:
The value of Neb has to be discounted for more than one
berth depending on whether the bus stop is in-line or off-
line. It is suggested that values of off-line would be lesser
than in-line.
Microsimulation Models
Fernández (2001) tested the Convoy Model for a one-berth
bus stop at Manor House Station, London. The results were
2.7 times the observed data, and hence the model did not de-
liver good results in this case. It was pointed out that the
constants assumed in the formula, which are essentially ap-
plicable to high capacity busways, were not applicable to a
bus stop in the UK urban environment, and hence the over-
estimation in capacity.
The HCM 2000 model is simple and straightforward and
has a good conceptual underpinning. However, its inherent
nature of using gross values makes it too simplistic for appli-
cation to real-life situations. In addition, since the gross val-
ues used in the model are derived mainly from US-based em-
pirical studies, its application to the UK may not render ap-
propriate results.
183
It appears that tackling the issue of not using gross values
could be dealt with by use of microsimulation models. In
that, observed individual values could be used instead of
grossed or averaged ones, allowing the user to adapt the
model to the context it is being used for. IRENE (Gibson et
al, 1989 as reviewed in Fernández, 2001 and PASSION [PAral-
lel Stop SimulatION] (Fernández, 2001)) are both microsimu-
lation models. The assumption in IRENE that buses arrive at
random and that almost any bus that arrives satisfies the
waiting passenger seems reasonable when the bus system is
deregulated or informal with many services sharing the same
routes and high bus flows and passenger demands. However,
there is no empirical evidence that this is the actual case, and
many not be true if services, frequencies, and demand are
lower (Fernández, 2001). In addition, the assumption that
the mean arrival rate of passengers remains constant during
the simulation period might not be applicable when passen-
ger arrivals are dependent on other services such as a railway.
In a nutshell, IRENE applies well in situations with high and
homogeneous bus and passenger arrivals, but does not repre-
sent passenger arrivals in detail.
To overcome this particular deficiency of IRENE, a different
approach in modelling is required. Elaluf (1994) made some
advances on these lines. Her study recognised that the
processes at a bus stop happen in parallel and hence it would
be reasonable to use a parallel computing technique to simu-
late bus stop operations. Fernández (2001) furthered this ap-
proach by developing a microsimulation program PASSION.
PASSION addresses the deficiencies of IRENE, by having a
dedicated input section for passenger arrival data. Owing to
these merits PASSION was used for estimating bus station ca-
pacities in this study.
ESTIMATION OF BUS STATION CAPACITY
The brief literature review of capacity estimation models in-
dicates that these models are primarily used for bus stops.
No model specifically refers to estimating capacity of a bus
station. Prima facie, one can argue that bus station capacity
could be estimated by summing up the individual capacities
of the bus stops/berths within the bus station. HCM 2000
(TRB, 2000) mentions the use of discounted values as a multi-
plier instead of the number of berths, ie instead of multiply-
ing the capacity of a bus stop by three for a three-berth bus
station, it suggests using 2.45 and 2.60 respectively for in-line
and off-line bus stops, to get the effective capacity. In other
words, this multiplier represents the effective number of
berths. The author feels that there are issues that are differ-
ent in bus stops and bus stations (briefly discussed in the
next section ) and hence the worthiness of this ‘natural ex-
tension’ is an area warranting further research. However, in
this study PASSION was used for each of the three bus stops
and bus station capacity was derived by summation of the ca-
pacities of the three bus stops in case of independent bus
stops and using discounting factors in case of interdependent
bus stops (see Table 1).
IS ESTIMATING BUS STOP CAPACITY ANY
DIFFERENT FROM ESTIMATING BUS
STATION CAPACITY?
Estimation of bus stop capacity uses dwell time and clearance
time. However, in case of bus stations, two aspects emerge as
being different: [1] the additional time of manoeuvring the
bus from bus station entry to bus berth and from bus berth to
bus station exit, which could be termed at the internal run-
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184 Calculating bus station capacity
Figure 1:
Existing layout
and bus stops
N in practice, stop A and B act as one bus stop (stop A is merely
B
C A
ning time2 and [2] a component of the internal delay attrib-
uted to jaywalking passengers (if any), which could be
termed as additional internal delay. The latter might be par-
ticularly high in case of an island type layout but could also
exist in perimeter or concourse layouts if pedestrians are
undisciplined or the design of the station is such that it en-
courages jaywalking. Contrastingly, these two components
in case of bus stops would be nonexistent or minimal (if
any). This discussion suggests two things: either bus stop ca-
pacity estimation models need appropriate modifications in
order to consider these two components or a separate simula-
tion model for estimating bus station capacity should be de-
veloped.
Table 1:
Summary of
simulation runs CAPACITY OF BRIGHTON BUS STATION
with signal-at-exit
The bus station capacities for existing and proposed situa-
Table 2: tions were estimated using PASSION. In that, separate input
Summary of files were created for each of the bus stops for both existing
simulation runs and proposed situations. A primary survey was conducted to
with free-exit3 record bus arrivals and passenger alighting and boarding (for
each route) for a period of 90 minutes.
Table 1:
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Existing situation
Brighton station has three bus stops (see Figure 1). However,
a flag-poled stop, without shelter) and buses for stop A often
stop at B if B is empty. In the 90-minute survey period only
three buses were observed at stop A. Hence, for the existing
situation stops A and B were combined. The key outputs of
the microsimulation runs, with a traffic signal at exit, are
shown in Table 1. Table 2 shows the outputs with free-exit
for comparison. Please note that microsimulation runs with
obstructed exit were also performed but are not presented in
this paper.
From the microsimulation outputs it is revealed that the
saturation for the existing situation is 33% (16% to 51%),
which is much below the generally acceptable maximum de-
sign value of 60% (Tyler, 2002), although queuing was ob-
served on some occasions. Thus, adding new berths to the
bus station was not necessary and hence the proposed de-
signs consider only three bus berths.
Proposed situation
The congestion and queuing observed at Brighton Bus Sta-
tion can be attributed to the following factors:
Factor 1 Internal delay
(due to interdependency of berths)
(ie, a bus from a stop cannot depart if a bus is parked at
preceding stop and a wrongly parked bus at the following
stop will delay a bus wishing to enter the preceding stop)
Factor 2 Internal delay (due to pedestrian jaywalking)
Factor 3 External delay (due to hindrance from taxis
queuing at bus station exit)
Factor 4 External delay (due to taxis and cars using bus
station area)
Factor 5 External delay (due to traffic signal at exit)
Factor 6 High passenger service time (probably attrib
uted to cultural factors, ie Brighton being slow
paced as against London which is a fast-paced city!)
Factor 7 Irregular bus arrival pattern
It can be appreciated that factors 1 to 4 can be manipu-
lated easily, ie these are generally within the scope of a bus
station design exercise. How these have been achieved
through the proposed design is discussed later in the paper.
Factors 5 to 7 could be changed, but would generally be part
of a larger transport planning exercise, which would com-
prise rerouting of buses, area-wide traffic management, and
signal redesign.
To address Factor 1 (above), which is of prime importance,
Table 2:
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the three berths are construed as being independent of each
other in the proposals. The arithmetic sum of individual
berths is the capacity of the bus station. The three berths
cater to the same twelve routes that come to the station at
present. However, some minor reallocation of routes was
done based on their frequency and destinations.
Separate input files were created for simulation of the pro-
posed situation using exactly the same bus arrivals, passenger
arrivals, and route opted by each passenger as used in the
input files for simulation of existing situation (as summarised
in Tables 1 and 2).
As can be seen from Table 1, the capacity of the bus station
for the proposed situation turns out to be 127 buses/h as
against the existing capacity of 82 buses/h. The increase in ca-
pacity can be attributed to making the berths independent (ie,
the presence of a bus at any of the berths does not affect func-
tioning of the other two berths). In addition, the reallocation
of bus routes also helped in bringing the saturation level down
to 23% (14% to 43%) as against the existing value of 33% (16%
to 51%). Based on the analysis using PASSION, it could be said
that because of the independence of berths, the overall delay,
which was occurring in the existing situation, is eliminated in
the proposed situation. The possible physical layouts for the
proposed situation are discussed in the next section.
THE DESIGN APPROACH
Conceptual bus station layouts
Conceptually two different layouts could exist with reference
to the location of the bus station in the context of the access
road. In the off-line layout, the road(s) that leads to the bus
station abounds the station area. In other words, no part of
the road space is used as bus berths. On the other hand, in
the in-line layout, part of the road leading to the bus station
itself is used as bus berths. Off-line and in-line layouts in
context of Brighton Bus Station can be explained by help of
the schematic diagram in Figure 2.
Generally, most major bus stations would be off-line.
However, in-line bus stations might have to be considered if
the site is in a physically constricted area-a case common
with inner-city bus stations. Brighton Bus Station is indeed
situated in the historic core of the city and hence it was nec-
essary to explore the possibility of an in-line type layout.
Vehicle swept-path simulation
After having decided the conceptual layout, a software used
by London Buses, Transport for London (TfL) called MISS
(Mobil Interactive Swept-path Simulator) was employed. Ve-
hicle parameters such as the outer dimensions, distance be-
tween front and rear wheel axles, and steering sensitivity are
inputs to the MISS. On the site area in the drawing, a path is
traced along which one expects the bus to be driven. Using
the ‘calculate path’ command, the swept path of the vehicle
as it moves is simulated (see Drawing BO1.2 ).
The first step is to mark out tentative areas for the bus plat-
form islands or the areas where bus should not run (based on
the design concept discussed above) before running the ‘elec-
tronic bus’ on the bus station site in the drawing. Then vehi-
cle swept paths are obtained. Bus platforms and channelisers
are then formed such that they are clear off the bus swept
paths. The bus platforms so formed are checked against the
minimum standards of space required for wheelchair ma-
noeuvre and for providing a shelter (if necessary). This
process ideally has to be repeated until the optimum layout is
obtained (ie, the one that minimises space requirements and
more importantly satisfies the horizontal gap between the
bus and the platform of accessibility considerations of the
185
N N
"Off-line" "In-line"
Bus Station Area Bus Station Area
wheelchair users). However, owing to limitations on time Figure 2:
and resources, this process was carried out only once in the
The concept of
study. Thus further refinements to the proposed layouts are
off-line and in-
certainly possible. As a special note it is worth mentioning
line bus stations
that currently the MISS software is programmed to simulate
in context of
the swept paths of the vehicle regardless of the external con-
ditions such as the type of kerb. This means that if a Kassel
Brighton
kerb4 is put in place then the steering mechanism and the
manoeuvrability of the bus changes, which currently is not
reflected in MISS. Should such modifications be made to this
software then it could still become a more powerful tool for
designing bus station layouts.
Drawings depicting the physical layout of the bus station
and how it has been achieved by use of swept-path simula-
tion can be referred to in drawings labelled BO1.1, BO1.2,
and BI3.1. Drawing showing swept-paths for achieving the
layout for BI3.1 are not included in this paper. In the evalua-
tion methodology developed in this study for comparing the
proposed design (not discussed in this paper), the proposal
BO1 ranked the highest. There was not room to display all of
the bus station layouts and the proposed taxi rank alterna-
tives in this paper.
HOW THE PROPOSED LAYOUTS WOULD
REDUCE CONGESTION AND QUEUING?
This section discusses how the above-discussed factors have
been addressed in the proposed layouts.
Factor 1 Internal delay (due to interdependency of
berths)
Dealt with by making the three berths independent. How-
ever, in case of in-line type layouts bus drivers’ error could
make it interdependent.
Factor 2 Internal delay (due to pedestrian jaywalking)
Dealt with by making more area available to pedestrians
and by having designated pedestrian crossing points.
Factor 3 External delay (due to hindrance from taxis
queuing at bus station exit)
Dealt with by having a higher ‘turnover’ rate for taxis
thereby reducing incidence of queuing and by having more
space for taxi set-down.
Factor 4 External delay (due to taxis and cars using bus
station area)
Dealt with by having a higher ‘turnover’ rate for taxis
thereby reducing incidence of queuing and by having a
physical layout that deters taxis and private cars from en-
tering the bus station area and stopping there (which is oc-
curring frequently in the existing situation).
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186 Calculating bus station capacity

I would like to
acknowledge the
SCOPE FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
academic inputs The topic of bus station design has been little dealt with in
from Professor the literature. Most literature on the subject relating to ca-
Nick Tyler, UCL; pacity estimation is on bus stops and does not explicitly refer
practical inputs, to a bus station. Thus, development of a microsimulation
base map and software, for bus stations or the likely adaptation of a soft-
supporting data ware like PASSION specifically for bus stations, needs to be
from Len further researched. In addition, modifications to the swept-
Holloway, path simulation software that are sensitive to external condi-
Brighton & Hove tions could make it a more powerful tool for enhancing the
City Council; help physical layouts of bus stations. Lastly, further research on
with MISS from development of a framework or guidelines for evaluation of
Hugh Bailey and bus station designs would certainly help the cause of bus sta-
Martin Edgar, tion design.
Transport for
London; and CONCLUSIONS
assistance in
primary surveys
This study tries to demonstrate that bus station design should
from Taku
and can be a more scientific process. Capacity and accessibility
Fujiama, UCL.
considerations should be at the forefront. In other words, the
layout of the bus paths, bus berths, pedestrian infrastructure,
kerb design, bus platform area, etc need not be purely driven
by architectural and urban design considerations.
In case of Brighton, the existing constraints, namely lack of
space and not drastically disturbing the activity pattern in the
area, were the key considerations in developing the proposals.
However, if such a project is undertaken the opportunities of
looking into a wider context should not be foregone. In other
words, since Brighton Bus Station is located in the historic core
of the city, aspects such as decongesting the area and making it
more pedestrian friendly should be dovetailed with such pro-
jects, if possible.
The author believes that local planning councils and trans-
port departments could adapt the framework developed in this
study to get a reasonably accurate assessment of the existing
situation of their bus stations. Such an assessment could then
be used to formulate schematic alternatives for the purpose of
budgeting and terms of reference for detailed design.
Footnotes
1
Is based on an MSc Transport dissertation at Imperial College
London & UCL, under the supervision of Professor Nick Tyler, UCL.
2
Coined by the author.
3
The purpose of comparing signal-at-exit and free-exit conditions is
to understand the impact of free-exit conditions on capacity and
saturation. From the simulation results, it can be seen that the
individual berth capacities and hence the bus station capacity and
the saturation level are markedly improved. Although, it is a
utopian idea to totally eliminate other traffic from the bus station
area unless it is part of a major town center revitalization project,
investment in bus-actuated signals could markedly improve the
capacity.
4
A type of kerb that has been used in some areas of London and
some cities in the UK, which enables the bus to be aligned with the
bus platform without any horizontal gap.
REFERENCES
Elaluf, Silva Monica (1994). Transputer-based microscopic
simulation of bus-stop operations. Unpublished MSc dissertation,
University of London.
Fernández, R E (2001). Modelling bus stop interactions.
Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of London.
Transportation Research Board (TRB) (2000). Highway capacity
manual 2000. Washington, DC: TRB.
Tyler, Nick [ed] (2002). Accessibility and the bus system: from
concepts to practice. London: Thomas Telford.

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187

These drawings
were produced
with software
used by London
Buses,Transport
for London (TfL),
called MISS,
(Mobile
Interactive
Swept-path
Simulator).

tec MAY 2006