Busy bus lines

[1993matias]

Hi there,

I have a layout where I have some very busy bus lines. During rush hours it has departures every four minutes.
My problem is that the buses end up in other "slots" than they belong to - either they leave earlier or later than planned, and thus make a mess when they go off duty at a wrong place.
That is why I would like to know if any of you have experiences with such frequent services and how to avoid the mess? I would like to keep the turn times at the end stops longer than four minutes, so I have two platforms at each end to accommodate all the buses.
How do you avoid buses going on duty arriving after the previous bus but before their departure time? How do you make sure the bus is in the right place when it goes off duty (i.e. not beginning the trip of a different bus)?
Do you have any other tips for busy lines?
Thanks

[Indi]

Hey Matias

I understand your problem, I had the same on my London map with very long bus lines and lots of traffic lights.

I see different possibilities how the sequence of the busses gets messed up. In my network the problems occured with busses coming from the depot. Is this the same way your problems are produced? If not, what exactly messes up the sequence of your busses?

I solved the problem by using 2 departure points at each end of the line. One for regular busses, the other one only for busses exiting from the depot. However this solution only looks good if you have a waiting zone before the actual first stop of the line (wich is the case on many London Bus routes...)

Indi

[1993matias]

Hi Indi,

Thanks for the reply. I think it is a bit of both problems: First, the buses end up too late to leave at the time they're supposed to do. This then means that buses going on duty for the evening rush go between the wrong buses or be delayed because they're waiting for the other delayed buses. Yeah, it's a mess

I don't have cars or traffic lights (thank god), but the buses still seem to run a bit late sometimes. I am not sure why though. Maybe it can be helped with longer turn times at the end stops?
Regarding the on-duty buses, having them in a holding area sounds like a good idea. How do you do it, have a timing point with the times for the buses going on duty?
Do you allow late departures on your timing points?

Thanks!

[bipbip]

Hello

In my layout, for each terminus, I have two timing points :
The first one (left on picture) is only for buses coming from the other terminus,
The second one (right on picture) is for all buses.
The schedules of these two timing points are shifted by one minute.

At both terminus, I have a time gap of 20 % at rush hour, 15 % during the all day (except rush hour) and 10 % at night.

For all timing points, I have allowed the "late departures".

bipbip

[Indi]

Regarding the on-duty buses, having them in a holding area sounds like a good idea. How do you do it, have a timing point with the times for the buses going on duty?

I have a similar layout as in the picture of bipbip.
I have three timing points

busses coming from the other line end use stop T as last stop of their line (no timing point here for theses busses) then line up at the timing point as the bus in the picture.
busses coming from the depot serve the first timing point (T) and then depart directly to Stop Z.
so all busses serve timing point Z

This sometimes leads to problems as well, to avoid these I would have to use just 2 parallel timing points where the two "types" of busses cant block each other. But I wanted to stay close to real road layout...

In any case to avoid problems it is important to have enough spare time on the end of the line. My busses depart on time even if they arrive with a delay of 10 minutes (I used original tfl bus running schedules with has up to 15 minutes of layover on the end of this line). I rarely have busses departing with delay (it mostly happens late night when spare time is low but this does not lead to problems as no other busses are around)

Do you allow late departures on your timing points?

Yes always!

[bipbip]

Hello

In any case to avoid problems it is important to have enough spare time on the end of the line. My busses depart on time even if they arrive with a delay of 10 minutes (I used original tfl bus running schedules with has up to 15 minutes of layover on the end of this line). I rarely have busses departing with delay (it mostly happens late night when spare time is low but this does not lead to problems as no other busses are around)

In France, in real bus network, the most efficient spare time is 10 % of the travel time : ex : if the travel time between the two terminus is 40 minutes, the spare time will be at least 4 minutes.

bipbip

[1993matias]

Okay, so if I understand you correctly, what you do is to have two separate timing points, one for in revenue buses and one for on-duty buses. It makes sense, because that way on-duty buses will not depart in the slot of an in-revenue bus.

Now, my other question is about going off-duty. When do you set the bus to go off duty? If the route is 40 minutes long and you have a turn time of five minutes, do you set the off-duty time at the 30-minute mark? 35 minutes? Or maybe in between?

Thank you for your help

[bipbip]

Hello

I take an example :
A bus line nb5 with two terminus : Terminus A and Terminus B
On my WTT, departure from A of a bus at 8:15am, must arrive at B at 8:55am and then go to the depot as an non-revenue bus.
I put a data change point just after timing point A to say :
- I change my route code 5_B becomes 5D_B (5D_B means that the bus of line nb5 will go to terminus B and then go to the depot)
- I add a time going off-duty : 8:53am (arrival at terminus B minus 2 minutes)
- I give the name of the depot and the track numebr of the depot (each bus as its own track number).

I don't know if my explanations are clear. Tell me if you aven't understood !

bipbip

[Indi]

When do you set the bus to go off duty?

I usually set the time about 5 minutes earlier than arrival time depending on line length, so in your case that would be after 35 minutes. I let the bus ride as a regular bus (no #).
At the terminus I have a data point that changes busses going off-duty into a service ride.

I'm not sure if the terms are correct as I use Bahn in German, so here ist my data point input to make sure you see what I mean. (I am not sure if inputs are the same in English, but I guess so)

1(e=E, Z="Not in Service", Y=D)

This way is if you want a specific vehicle to go off-duty. However this only works properly if busses use their respective slots correctly...

You can use the idea of bipbip to make sure a specific ride goes off-duty (no matter which vehicle does ride...)
This on the other hand leads to problems if no vehicle is available at Point A for departure time, as no vehicle takes the data from the data point.

I've tried many options including the one of bipbip. I figured they all only work properly if busses are on time
The only thing really working is giving a number to each ride and change the number at each line end. This together with bipbips methode of "flexible" off-duty rides works. But it is a whole lot more work...