Research Article

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

2019, Vol. 11(5) 1–11
Ó The Author(s) 2019
Traffic impacts analysis of bus stops DOI: 10.1177/1687814019848272
journals.sagepub.com/home/ade
near signalized intersections based on
an optimal velocity model

Zhenyu Liu1 and Meiying Jian1,2

Abstract
The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of the bus stop near the signalized intersection on the traffic flow from
two aspects, traffic volume and delay. A modified Optimal Velocity model is established to analyze the dynamic traffic
flow near a signalized intersection with curbside bus stops, and two cases including bus stops placed upstream and
downstream the intersection are simulated to compare the impacts. The influencing factors, including the entering prob-
ability and the distance between a bus stop and its neighboring signalized intersection, are considered in this study. The
simulation results indicate that the impact of the bus stop on the traffic flow is significant when entering probability is
above the critical value, and gradually disappears as the distance increases. With respect to the volume, the downstream
bus stop is greatly superior to the upstream one when the distance is less than 70 m, and slightly inferior to the
upstream one when the distance ranges from 70 m to 200 m. With regard to the vehicle delay, the upstream bus stop is
better than the downstream one. We hope these findings will be helpful to offer scientific guidance for the public trans-
port planning and management.

Keywords
Bus stop, signalized intersection, simulation model, traffic volume, delay

Date received: 7 January 2019; accepted: 3 April 2019

Handling Editor: James Baldwin

Introduction Signalized intersections play an important role in

In the past few decades, traffic flow theories have been
attracting the attention of many researchers. Traffic
simulation, as a method of traffic flow theory research,
is a technique of reproducing the dynamic process of
traffic flow by means of computer mathematics models.
In recent years, several traffic simulation models have
been proposed, such as the stimulus–response model,
safety distance model, optimal velocity (OV) model,
artificial intelligence–based model, and others. The OV
mode based on the cellular automata, in particular, has
attracted a lot of attention. This model can simulate
the spatiotemporal evolution of complex systems with
discretization time, space, and state variables, so it is
considered to be an idealization of a physical system,1
such as traffic system.
management of the urban traffic system. With the rapid
development of Chinese urbanization and motoriza-
tion, traffic jam and traffic accidents in cities become
more and more serious, especially at the intersections.2,3
Of course, a coordinated signal control system is very
useful to alleviate congestion.4 Many Chinese cities also
adopted some car ownership policies to limit the
1
Institute of Transportation, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China
2
Inner Mongolia Engineering Research Center for Urban Transportation
Data Science and Applications, Hohhot, China
Corresponding author:
Meiying Jian, Institute of Transportation, Inner Mongolia University,
Hohhot 010021, China.
Email: jianmy321@163.com

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open-access-at-sage).
2 Advances in Mechanical Engineering
number of cars on the road.5 In addition, public trans-
port priority policies are also regarded as one of the
effective means to solve traffic congestion. However, in
order to give full play to the priority role of public
transport, it is very important to set up a reasonable
bus stop. Considering the convenience and safety of
passengers traveling and transferring between the per-
pendicular bus lines,6,7 bus stops are commonly located
near the signalized intersections, which can be placed
upstream or downstream of the neighboring intersec-
tion. Due to the tight constraints on streets in cities,
buses always occupy a travel lane while dwelling at the
stop to load and unload passengers.8 The dwelling bus
would form a bottleneck, which may have a
serious impact on the traffic flow near the intersection
and constrain the performance of the intersection.
Consequently, the study of the location of a bus stop
near a signalized intersection is important to both the
public traffic management and the traffic theory
development.
Numerous studies have focused on the impacts of
bus stops close to the signalized intersection.7,9–11 In
these studies, different analytical models are established
to evaluate the impacts of bus stops on the performance
of its neighboring intersection, especially variations of
the traffic volume near the intersection. Several studies
have established traffic simulation models to investigate
the impacts.8,12–15 For example, Wong et al.8 built a
simulation model to analyze the impact of a bus stop
upstream of a signalized intersection in a single-lane
traffic system, where the lane-change behavior was not
allowed. But real traffic is always a multilane system,
and the following vehicles will change to a better driv-
ing condition lane when a leading bus dwells at the bus
stop. Zhao et al.13 used a cellular automata model to
study the impacts of bus stops which reside upstream of
its neighboring intersection or downstream of it. Then
they built another cellular automata model to study the
effect of a bus stop between two nearby intersections.14
These two works assumed that the dwelling time of
buses is constant. However, the facts of the situation
are not always like this. According to a previous study,
the dwelling time is always distributed randomly.11
Moura et al.15 used a micro-simulation model to find
the optimal location of a bus stop near a signalized
intersection. However, the changes of the traffic volume
near the intersection have not been elaborated.
Moreover, debates on optimal location about a bus
stop relative to its neighboring intersection have not
been settled. Terry and Thomas16 found that the down-
stream bus stop was better. Otherwise, Fitzpatrick
et al.17 draw the opposite conclusion. This can be attrib-
uted to different factors being considered, such as the
distance between the bus stop and the intersection, traf-
fic volume, bus dwell time, and so on.8 Therefore,
recent studies investigating the optimal location of bus
stops close to the intersection considered some different
influence factors. Zhao et al.13 found that the upstream
bus stop was superior to the downstream one when it
was not far away from the intersection. Gu et al.7 dis-
covered that the downstream bus stop was better when
the intersection approaches saturation, or when the bus
dwell time was too long. Up to now, how to reside the
bus stop near a signalized intersection under different
circumstances has yet to be settled. Therefore, it is nec-
essary to perform further analysis.
Due to the advantage of traffic flow simulation, this
study attempts to build a simulation model to repro-
duce the dynamic process of traffic flow near the inter-
section with curbside bus stops in a two-lane traffic
system. Because of the simplicity and few parameters,
an extended OV model with lane-changing rule is estab-
lished to investigate the impacts of a bus stop on traffic
flow from both the traffic volume and vehicle delay
aspects around its neighboring intersection. Therefore,
an OV model for a signalized intersection with curbside
bus stops is presented in section ‘‘The model.’’ In sec-
tion ‘‘Simulation and results,’’ the simulation results
are analyzed and the traffic impacts of bus stops from
two aspects, traffic volume and vehicle delay, are
shown. Finally, the conclusions are given in section
‘‘Conclusion.’’
The model
The car-following model
In this study, the symmetric two-lane traffic system is
considered and Jiang’s full velocity difference (FVD)
model is used as the basic car-following regulation in
which the velocity of each vehicle is adjusted instantly
in the light of the distance and the velocity difference
between vehicle n and its leading vehicle n + 1.18 The
acceleration equation in this model is written as
dvn (t)
= k½V (Dhn (t))  vn (t) + lDvn ð1Þ
dt
where the parameter k denotes the sensitivity of a driv-
er’s reaction; Dhn (t) is the headway between vehicle n
and its leading vehicle n + 1 on the same lane; vn (t) is
the velocity of vehicle n; l is a constant parameter; Dvn
denotes the velocity difference between vehicle n and
its leading vehicle n + 1, which corresponds to
(vn + 1 (t)  vn (t)); and V (Dhn (t)) is the OV function
given as
V (Dhn (t)) = V1 + V2 tanh½C1 (Dhn (t)  lc )  C2  ð2Þ
According to formula (2), the minimum expected
velocity corresponds to (V1  V2 ) and the maximal
expected velocity equals (V1 + V2 ). lc is the length of a
vehicle. C1 and C2 are two calibration parameters.
Liu and Jian
Besides V1 and V2 , the values of other parameters
were referred from previous studies.1,18 Consequently,
the value of the sensitive parameter k is set to be
0.41 s21, the constant parameter l corresponds to
0.5 s21, and the parameters C1 and C2 are calibrated as
0.13 and 1.57, respectively.
Similar to the study of Wong et al.,8 in this two-lane
model with a signalized intersection, when approaching
the intersection, each vehicle moves on the road in a
car-following state. If there is no leading vehicle on the
approach, the vehicle proceeds at its desired velocity
and checks the signal continuously. When the signal is
green, the vehicle moves forward and passes the stop
line. When the signal becomes red, the vehicle calcu-
lates the minimum stopping distance Dmin according to
formula (3)
vn (t) 3 vn (t)
Dmin = ð3Þ
2 3 dcen (t)
where vn (t) is the instantaneous velocity of vehicle n
and dcen (t) denotes the deceleration of vehicle n.
Considering the heterogeneity in the braking perfor-
mance of drivers, in this two-lane model with a
signalized intersection, dcen (t) is assumed to follow a
uniform distribution, dcen (t) ; U (a1, b1). Here
U (a1, b1) is a uniform distribution function. Two para-
meters a1 and b1 denote the upper and lower bound-
aries, respectively. A uniform distribution is assumed
for two reasons. On the one hand, the deceleration of
vehicles is always negative, and on the other hand there
are always the upper and lower boundaries of the decel-
eration of vehicles approaching an intersection.
Meanwhile, there will be a comparison between this
minimum stopping distance and the distance from the
vehicle to the stop line. If the minimum stopping dis-
tance is less than or equal to the distance to the stop
line, the vehicle will be decelerated smoothly and
stopped in front of the stop line. Otherwise, it will pro-
ceed continuously. If there is a leading vehicle on the
approach, the vehicle will move forward according to
formula (1). In addition, if there is already a stopping
vehicle in front of the stop line, the minimum stopping
distance will be compared with the distance from the
vehicle to the stopping vehicle. If the minimum stop-
ping distance is less than or equal to the distance to the
stopping vehicle, the vehicle will be decelerated
smoothly and stopped behind the stopping vehicle.
Similarly, for a bus, when approaching the bus stop,
the minimum stopping distance is compared with the
distance from the bus to the bus stop. If the minimum
stopping distance is less than or equal to the distance to
the bus stop, the bus will be decelerated smoothly and
stopped at the bus stop. Otherwise, it proceeds continu-
ously according to formula (1). If there is already a bus
dwelling at the bus stop, the minimum stopping
3
distance will be compared with the distance to the
dwelling bus. When the minimum stopping distance is
less than or equal to the distance to the dwelling bus,
the bus will be decelerated smoothly and stopped
behind the dwelling bus.
Furthermore, according to previous studies,11,19 in this
study the dwelling time T d of the bus is also assumed to
follow a uniform distribution, Tn ; U (a2, b2). Two para-
meters a2 and b2 denote the upper and lower boundaries,
respectively.
Lane-changing rules
Generally, if there is a more ideal lane, the lane-
changing behavior will be happed when a vehicle is hin-
dered by the leading vehicle. But the lane-changing
behavior must be based on two essential criteria. One is
the incentive criterion which means that the driving
condition of the target lane is better than the original
one. For example, the vehicle could move forward at a
desired speed. The other is the security criterion which
means that the vehicle could not collide with the neigh-
boring vehicles on the target lane or the original lane
during the lane-changing behavior.
In Figure 1, Dxn, 1 denotes the distance between vehi-
cle n and its leading vehicle n + 1 on Lane1. Dxn, 2 and
Dxn, 3 denote the distances between vehicle n and its
neighboring vehicles on Lane2. Dvn, 1 is the velocity dif-
ference between vehicle n and its leading vehicle n + 1
on Lane1 which corresponds to (vn + 1 (t)  vn (t)). Dvn, 2
denotes the velocity difference between vehicle n and its
front vehicle on Lane2 which equals (vn + 2 (t)  vn (t)).
Ds denotes the distance between the bus stop and the
signalized intersection. The lane-changing incentive cri-
terion for vehicle n is related to the attributes Dxn, 1 ,
Dxn, 2 , Dvn, 1 , and Dvn, 2 . The security criterion is related
to Dxn, 3 . Consequently, for all vehicles except the buses
which are approaching the bus stop, the comprehensive
lane-changing rules can be written as
Dxn, 2 .Dxn, 1 , Dxn, 3 .dsafe and rand()\p ð4Þ
or as
Dxn, 2 ł Dxn, 1 , Dvn, 2 .Dvn, 1 , Dxn, 2 .vn (t) 3 T ,
ð5Þ
Dxn, 3 .dsafe and rand()\p
where dsafe denotes the safety distance which means the
critical distance between the front and rear vehicles.
Here, we assume that the lane-changing probability of
a vehicle is p.
For buses, when approaching or entering the bus
stop, there is a different lane-changing rule to follow.
Generally, in order to facilitate dwelling at the bus stop,
a bus is inclined to move forward on Lane2. If a bus is
proceeding on Lane2, it will not change to Lane1. If a
4 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 1. Configuration of a road link with an intersection and a bus stop.

bus is on Lane1 currently, there will be a lane-changing

behavior as long as the condition of Lane2 is not worse
than Lane1.
As shown in Figure 1, Dcl is the distance from a bus
on Lane1 to the end of the bus stop that is trying to
change to Lane2 for the convenience of dwelling at the
bus stop. Dbstop is the distance from vehicle n to the end
of the bus stop which corresponds to (xbstop  xn ). Here
xbstop is the position of the end of the bus stop and xn is
the position of vehicle n. As a consequence, when
Dbstop ø 0 and Dbstop ł Dcl , the comprehensive rules for
a bus to change from Lane1 to Lane2 are written as
Figure 2. The schematic of probability pb.
Dxn, 2 . min (Dxn, 1 , (vn (t)  dvn ) 3 T)Dxn, 3
ð6Þ
. min (dsafe , vnback (t) 3 T ) and rand()\pb
The condition Dxn, 2 ø Dxn, 1 or (Dxn, 2 \Dxn, 1 and
where vnback (t) is the velocity of the vehicle on Lane2 Dxn, 2 . max (0, (vn (t)  dvn (t)) 3 T )) means that the
behind the bus and pb denotes the lane-changing prob- driving condition of Lane1 is not much better than that
ability of each bus. Since the closer the bus is to the bus of Lane2. The condition Dxn, 3 . min (dsafe , vnback (t) 3 T )
stop, the more the bus tends to change from Lane1 to ensures that the lane-changing behavior is safe. If a bus
cannot change from Lane1 to Lane2 until it is near the
Lane2, and the probability pb increases as the distance
end of the bus stop, it has to stop on Lane1 and wait
Dcl increases. Furthermore, there is no doubt that a bus
for the chance to change lane. In addition, if the bus
on Lane1 which has passed the starting point of the
stop is completely occupied by other buses, the
bus stop would change to Lane2 if the lane-changing
approaching bus can only be stopped nearby to wait
conditions are satisfied. And then the schematic of
for entering the bus stop.
probability pb is shown in Figure 2, and the equation
of probability pb can be written as
  Simulation and results
Dcl  Dbstop
pb = p + (1  p) 3 j ð7Þ
Dcl  Lbstop The simulation of this two-lane dynamic traffic state
with bus stops close to a signalized intersection is car-
where Lbstop denotes the length of the bus stop and j(x) ried out under the open boundary condition. At each
is a piecewise function, where j(x) = 0 for x\0, time step, the position of the last vehicle on each lane is
j(x) = x for 0 ł x\1, and j(x) = 1 for x ø 1. checked. If the position of the last vehicle is greater
Liu and Jian 5

than dsafe , a vehicle with maximal expected velocity gets

into the corresponding lane with the entering probabil-
ity pe . Each time step corresponds to 0.1 s. The first
10 min is discarded to prevent the unstable behavior,
and the program is executed for 15 min.
There are two types of vehicles: buses and cars. The
mix probability pgb corresponds to 0.05. In this study,
the length and maximal expected velocity of buses cor-
respond to 10 m and 40 km/h, respectively, and the
length and maximal expected velocity of cars are equal
to 5 m and 60 km/h, respectively. Therefore, the OV
functions of two types of vehicles are defined using for-
mulae (8) and (9).
For buses

Vb (Dxn, 1 (t)) = 5:52 + 6:02 tanh½0:13(Dhn (t)  10)  1:57

ð8Þ
For cars

Vc (Dxn, 1 (t)) = 8:0 + 8:67 tanh½0:13(Dhn (t)  5)  1:57

ð9Þ
The length of the road (Lroad ) corresponds to
5000 m. The intersection is set at the position 4000 m.
Other parameters in this study are set as follows:
Lbstop = 29 m, Dcl = 60 m, dsafe = 5 m, and p = 0:5. The
length of the signal cycle is fixed and corresponds
to 90 s. It is assumed that the green time is equal to the
red time. According to a previous study,11 the dwelling
time T d of each bus is always uniformly distributed
within the range [35 s, 55 s]. In addition, considering the
comfort degree of passengers, the distribution of each
vehicle’s deceleration is set as shown in formula (10).
dvn (t) ; U (  2,  2:6) ð10Þ
Impact of the bus stop on traffic volume
In order to analyze the impact of a bus stop close to the
signalized intersection on the traffic volume, the traffic
volume changes under different pe and Ds are described
as shown in Figure 3. Here traffic volume is defined as
the average number of vehicles passing through the
intersection. The simulation program is run 10 times
and the average traffic volume is obtained.
As shown in Figure 3, regardless of whether the bus
stop resides upstream or downstream of the intersec-
tion, with the increase of the entering probability pe ,
the volume increases until it reaches a saturated value.
This saturated volume is the capacity of the intersection
and the corresponding entering probability is called the
critical entering probability value. When pe is below
this critical value, the traffic on the road is free-flow,
Figure 3. The relationship between the traffic volume and
the entering probability pe with different Ds : (a) for the case
with a bus stop locating upstream of the intersection and (b)
for the case with a bus stop locating downstream of the
intersection.
and it is easy for a vehicle to find a sufficient gap to
change lane, and then a few of the passing vehicles are
hampered by the stopping buses in the green period.
As a result, the impact of the bus stop close to the
intersection on the traffic volume is likely to be mini-
mal. However, when pe is above this critical value, the
traffic becomes congested-flow. The stopping buses as
well as the buses waiting to stop always block other
vehicles from passing through the intersection at the
green light. Consequently, the impact is significant
and great.
Furthermore, as shown in Figure 3, the capacity of
the intersection increases as the distance Ds increases.
But, with the increase of the distance Ds , the increment
gradually drops until it is close to zero. This means that,
when the distance Ds is large enough, the impact of the
bus stop on the traffic volume gradually disappears.
It can also be seen from Figure 3 that, in the case
with an upstream bus stop, the increment of capacity
becomes slow when the distance Ds exceeded 140 m
and, in the case with a downstream bus stop, it almost
does not change when the distance Ds is more than
200 m. In order to further analyze the different impacts
on the traffic volume between the two cases, the traffic
volume variation versus the distance Ds with different
entering probabilities pe is shown in Figure 4. Here the
6 Advances in Mechanical Engineering
Figure 4. The traffic volume variation versus the distance Ds with different pe in the two cases.
traffic volume variation is defined as the difference
between the volume with an upstream bus stop and the
volume with a downstream bus stop at the same dis-
tance Ds and the same entering probability pe .
As shown in Figure 4, the location of the bus stop
influences the traffic volume at the signal intersection
significantly. When Ds is less than 70 m, the volume dif-
ference is great and negative, which means that the traf-
fic volume in the case with an upstream bus stop is
lower than the one in the case with a downstream bus
stop. This implies that the downstream bus stop is
greatly superior to the upstream one when Ds is less
than 70 m. On the contrary, when the distance Ds is
between 70 and 200 m, the volume difference is almost
positive expect the case with pe = 0.008, which means
that the traffic volume in the case with an upstream bus
stop is slightly higher than the one in the case with a
downstream bus stop. This implies that the downstream
bus stop becomes slightly inferior to the upstream one
when Ds ranges from 70 to 200 m. Moreover, when Ds
is more than 200 m, the volume difference becomes very
little. This means that the traffic volume is roughly the
same regardless of whether the bus stop is placed
upstream or downstream when Ds is more than 200 m.
Impact of the bus stop on delay
Delay is always viewed as an important measure to
analyze the operating characteristics and service level
of a signal intersection. Numerous models have been
established to evaluate the delay (the details shown in
the literature20–25). In general, delay often refers to the
difference between the ideal time and the actual time
when traversing a road section,25 such as an intersec-
tion. Here, the ideal time corresponds to the travel time
under ideal conditions. Similarly, the actual time means
the travel time under real conditions. In order to inves-
tigate the impact of the bus stop on the delay, in this
study, the ideal time is calculated as
Lrs
Tideal = ð11Þ
Videal
where Tideal corresponds to the ideal travel time, Lrs
means the length of a road section, and Videal represents
the ideal velocity when traversing this road section.
In order to determine the length of the road section,
the time–space diagrams of the trajectories for the
simulated vehicles are depicted in Figures 5 and 6. Here
the entering probability pe during each time step corre-
sponds to 0.026, which comes closer to the critical value
(see Figure 3). Figure 5 presents the time–space dia-
grams for the case with a bus stop locating upstream of
the signal intersection. The time–space diagrams for the
case with a bus stop locating downstream of the signal
intersection is illustrated in Figure 6. As shown in
Figures 5 and 6, due to the red light as well as the stop-
ping buses or the buses waiting to stop, traffic conges-
tions inevitably come up in the upstream sections of the
intersection as well as the bus stop, which will be bound
to cause a travel delay of each vehicle. Therefore, the
road section used to compare the travel time should
contain all the congestion sections.
Furthermore, in order to determine the ideal velo-
city, it is necessary to investigate the velocity trajectory
for any simulated vehicle. The velocity for the 200th
vehicle with different pe and Ds is depicted in Figures 7
and 8. It can be seen that, regardless of whether the bus
stop is upstream or downstream of the intersection, the
velocity of the 200th vehicle is relatively stable in the
range of 2000–3000 m. This indicates that the velocity
of the 200th vehicle in this range is not affected by the
intersection or the bus stop, so the average velocity of
this range can be used to calculate the ideal velocity
Videal . Moreover, from Figures 7 and 8, it is also found
that the velocity of the 200th vehicle tends to fluctuate
widely at the nearby section of the intersection as well
as the bus stop, especially in the range of 3000–4500 m.
This means that the intersection as well as the bus stop
has an observable impact on the velocity of the 200th
Liu and Jian
Figure 5. Time–space diagram for the case with a bus stop
locating upstream of the intersection. The black lines are
trajectories of cars and the red lines are trajectories of buses.
The left row denotes the time–space diagram of Lane1, whereas
the right one denotes that of Lane2.
vehicle in this range. In view of the above analysis, the
starting point of the delay comparison road section is
set at 3000 m and the end point is set at 4500 m. The
total length is 1500 m, that is, Lrs = 1500 m.
When Lrs and Videal are identified, the ideal time tra-
versing this road section can be calculated according to
formula (11). Meanwhile, the actual travel time for
each vehicle can also be observed during the simulation.
Then, the delay caused by the intersection as well as the
nearby bus stop will be deduced. Here, the vehicle delay
is caused by two aspects: on the one hand the problem
of the red light at the intersection, and on the other
hand the problem of the stopping buses. By contrasting
the total delay time for the case with the upstream bus
stop and the case with the downstream bus stop under
the same values of Ds and pe , the superiority and infer-
iority of these two cases can be investigated.
In order to further analyze the impact of these two
parameters Ds and pe on the delay, the delay time ver-
sus the distance Ds with different entering probabilities
pe is shown in Figure 9. Obviously, the vehicle delay is
7
Figure 6. Time–space diagram for the case with a bus stop
locating downstream of the intersection. The black lines are
trajectories of cars and the red lines are trajectories of buses.
The left row denotes the time–space diagram of Lane1, whereas
the right one denotes that of Lane2.
closely related to the distance Ds and the entering prob-
ability pe . With the increasing value of Ds , the delay
time tends to decrease gradually. Because, when the bus
stop is close to the intersection, vehicles are affected not
only by a red light but also by the stopping buses at the
green light on. With the increase of Ds , vehicles only
have to stop at a red light when passing through the
intersection, and the delay time decreases correspond-
ingly. Furthermore, by comparing Figure 9(a)–(f), it
can be seen that, with the increasing value of pe , the
total delay increases dramatically. Because with the
increase of the entering probability, the number of vehi-
cles on the road will increase and the gaps will decrease
correspondingly. As a result, it is difficult for vehicles
or buses to change lane freely. The vehicle that is ham-
pered by the stopping buses will wait for a longer time
and then the delay time will inevitably increase.
In addition, from Figure 9, the upstream bus stop is
advantageous over the downstream one in terms of
vehicle delay. When a bus stop is located upstream of
the intersection, the stopping buses or the buses waiting
to stop will hinder not only the vehicles that get through
8 Advances in Mechanical Engineering
Figure 7. The trajectory of velocity for the 200th vehicle for the case with a bus stop locating upstream of the intersection.
the intersection without stopping, but also the vehicles
that stop and wait at a red light. On the other hand,
when the bus stop is downstream of the intersection,
the stopping buses will influence the traffic flow leaving
the intersection, leading to small scope congestion.
Hence, vehicles take more time to traverse the road sec-
tion, and the total delay time is relatively longer.
Furthermore, it is also shown that the superiority of the
upstream bus stop is obvious, while the distance Ds is
around 50–200 m. If the distance Ds is small, whether
the bus stop resides upstream or downstream, it will
make a strong impact on the traffic flow at the intersec-
tion. Otherwise, when the distance Ds increases to more
than 200 m, the impact of the bus stop will be reduced
and the difference between the two cases becomes
smaller. Moreover, by comparing Figure 9(a)–(f), it can
be found that the greater the value of pe , the more obvi-
ous the superiority of the upstream bus stop. Overall,
with regard to the vehicle delay, the upstream bus stop
is better than the downstream one, especially when the
entering probability pe is larger and the distance Ds is in
the range of 50–200 m.
Conclusion
Public transport has been regarded as the main means
to solve urban traffic problems, such as pollution and
traffic congestion. In order to facilitate passengers to
travel, many bus stops will be located near the road
intersection in urban areas. However, the location of
the bus stops near the intersection will directly affect
the traffic efficiency of the road. This study establishes
an extended OV model to investigate the impacts of dif-
ferent bus stop locations from both the traffic volume
and vehicle delay aspects.
The simulation results are summarized as follows:
1. The bus stop close to the intersection has a
greater impact on the traffic volume only when
the entering probability pe is above the critical
Liu and Jian
Figure 8. The trajectory of velocity for the 200th vehicle for the case with a bus stop locating downstream of the intersection.
value. Furthermore, as the distance Ds between
the bus stop and the intersection increases, the
impact gradually disappears.
2. In terms of the impact on traffic volume, the down-
stream bus stop is greatly superior to the upstream
one when Ds is less than 70 m. Nevertheless, when
Ds is between 70 and 200 m, this superiority disap-
pears completely and the downstream bus stop
becomes slightly inferior to the upstream one.
3. With respect to the impact on vehicle delay, the
upstream bus stop outperforms the downstream
one, especially when the entering probability pe
is larger and the distance Ds is in the range of
50–200 m.
These results indicate that, if the entering probability
pe is small or the distance Ds is far enough, the bus stop
can be placed upstream or downstream of the intersec-
tion. Furthermore, in terms of traffic volume and delay,
the upstream bus stop is better than the downstream
9
one when Ds is in the range of 70–200 m. At this point,
in order to decrease the transfer distance of passengers,
it is favorable to place the bus stop upstream of the
intersection. We hope that the results of this study may
provide valuable suggestion for decision makers when
determining the optimum location of a bus stop close
to the intersection.
There are also two limitations in this study. One is
the identical parameters in the OV model for buses and
cars, such as the sensitive parameter k and the constant
parameter l. Actually, the moving processes of buses
are always different from cars. The further study is to
calibrate the OV model for buses with the field data.
The other is the fixed cycle time and green time in the
simulation. According to the results of Zhao et al.,13
the traffic cycle time made a significant impact on the
relationship between the maximum traffic volume and
Ds . Therefore, investigating the impact of the bus stop
on the traffic flow with different cycle time is critical.
This will also be the study emphasis in our further
10
Figure 9. The relationship between the delay and the distance Ds with different pe : (a) pe = 0.008, (b) pe = 0.016, (c) pe = 0.026,
(d) pe = 0.036, (e) pe = 0.042, and (f) pe = 0.046.
works. In addition, we will continue to evaluate the
model and optimization method through some specific
intersection cases to improve the model in the future.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: This work was financially supported by the Higher
Educational Scientific Research Projects of Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region (Project No. NJZY17012).
ORCID iD
Zhenyu Liu https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1037-7931
Advances in Mechanical Engineering
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