Performance of Transit Signal Priority with Queue Jumper Lanes

Abstract

Queue jumper lanes are a special type of bus preferential treatment that allows buses to bypass a waiting queue through a right-turn bay and then cut out in front of the queue by getting an early green signal. The performance of queue jumper lanes is evaluated under different transit signal priority (TSP) strategies, traffic volumes, bus volumes, dwell times, and bus stop and detector locations. Four TSP strategies are considered: green extension, red truncation, phase skip, and phase insertion. It was found that queue jumper lanes without TSP were ineffective in reducing bus delay. Queue jumper lanes with TSP strategies that include a phase insertion were found to be more effective in reducing bus delay while also improving general vehicle operations than those strategies that do not include this treatment. Nearside bus stops upstream of check-in detectors were preferred for jumper TSP over farside bus stops and nearside bus stops downstream of check-in detectors. Through vehicles on the bus approach were found to have only a slight impact on bus delay when the volume-to-capacity (v/c) ratio was below 0.9. However, when v/c exceeded 0.9, bus delay increased quickly. Right-turn volumes were found to have an insignificant impact on average bus delay, and an optimal detector location that minimizes bus delay under local conditions was shown to exist.