Wheelchair Lifts in Public Transportation

This paper provides an overview of a simulation project undertaken to provide data concerning the addition of wheelchair lifts to public buses on routes in the metropolitan Houston area. One bus route without lifts is researched and a computer model is constructed and validated to behave in a manner comparable to the real system. The validated model is then modified to add wheelchair lifts and experiments are performed to determine the schedule and incidental effects of the lift addition. The experiments consist of varying the percent of population expected to demand the lift and special seating areas on the modified buses. In general the effect of adding the lift to this single bus model is to sharply lower the probability that the bus will be early at scheduled stops and to increase the probability that the bus will be late at the scheduled stops. These probabilities vary in response to lift demanding population changes. Data for the lift-requiring passengers that will be unable to board on demand due to the limited capacity of the buses for wheel-borne passengers are also gathered from the model.