Implementation and Testing of Cooperative Bus Priority System in Connected Vehicle Environment

Most previous work on the bus priority operation problem merely focused on dedicated bus lanes or transit signal priority. With the advancement of wireless communication technologies and the development of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure systems (i.e., connected vehicles), the opportunity has arisen to optimize traffic light, bus speed, and holding times at nearside bus stops simultaneously to provide priority for public buses. The study reported in this paper demonstrated the design and implementation of a cooperative bus priority system on the basis of connected vehicle technology. The system function, system architecture, and optimization strategies are presented. The system was deployed and validated at an intersection with two adjacent bus stops in Taicang City, Jiangsu Province, China. The results of the field test showed that the proposed system could reduce travel time and could decrease the number of stops. The successful demonstration showed that the potential was high for more efficient, integrated transit priority operation strategies on the basis of connected vehicles.