Abstract Poor service quality is one of the major causes for declining share of buses in urban India. Improvement of bus travel time by implementing bus priority measures at intersections is well regarded as an effective instrument to improve bus service by reducing the travel time. However, only a few research works have been reported in the literature on bus priority strategies in Developing countries such as India. This paper documents an experience of using micro-simulation software VISSIM© to evaluate the impact of providing Queue Jump Lane (QJL) as a bus priority strategy for three representative four-arm isolated signalized intersections in Kolkata, India. The study shows that QJL is expected to be beneficial even in a heterogeneous traffic environment that is prevalent in Indian scenario. The effectiveness of QJL is found to be influenced by various factors such as traffic volume, vehicle composition and road geometry. The study encourages further investigations in terms of validation of results based on field implementation of QJL and identification of the domain of applicability of QJL in signalized intersections of urban India.

Abstract The article presents development of a closed-form corridor choice model under hypothetical variable message sign (VMS) based traffic information. A single VMS board is assumed to display traffic information at a junction of two alternative and competitive traffic corridors connecting two catchment areas in Kolkata city, India. The corridor choice models are developed by combining revealed preference (RP) and stated preference (SP) data sources. The development of a combined RP-SP model is a challenging task as different data sources have their respective error terms. In this work, the data sources are combined by exploiting their respective merits; while discarding their respective de-merits. Here a procedure of developing composite utility function is presented, which is constituted of estimates of attributes from SP data source and alternative specific constant term of alternatives calibrated from RP data source, while fixing all coefficients of attributes at SP estimates. The construction of corridor choice models is demonstrated for two types of VMS based traffic information, which differs in terms of the content displayed on VMS board and also for two types of trip maker- namely private car and taxi. Under the influence of VMS-based traffic information, trip makers are found to take corridor choice decision based on the rational trade-off between travel time information and direct travel cost of alternative traffic corridors. The alternative-specific-constant term of choice models indicates that in presence of VMS-based information, private car trip makers are likely to be less biased to choose comparatively longer but almost free-flow traffic corridor (thereby less travel time corridor); while taxi trip makers are likely to be more biased to choose longer but almost free-flow traffic corridor to arrive at their destination.

Nos estudos que tratam da disposição a pagar ("WTP - willingness-to-pay"), os dados de preferência declarada são analisados por meio do desenvolvimento de modelos econométricos. Todavia, a variação do WTP em diferentes especificações não tem sido estudada adequadamente. Uma comparação entre modelos econométricos, no contexto de valor da WTP, é feito com referência ao estudo de caso de serviços alimentadores de viagens rurais até pontos de ônibus. As especificações testadas incluem: Logit Mutinomial (MNL), Valores Extremos com Heterocedasticidade (HEV), Logit Aninhado (NL), Logit Aninhado com Covariância Heterogenênea (CHNL) e Logit com Parâmetros Aleatórios. Diversos modelos econométricos foram testados para se obter consistência e aceitação dos sinais dos coeficientes estimados, da significância estatística dos coeficientes e, ao fim, um bom grau de ajuste. Os valores da WTP encontrados variam entre os diferentes modelos, contudo as variações não são consistentes e predominantes para todos os atributos. No caso estudado, o efeito do modelo especificado é encontrado predominantemente no WTP para a redução do percurso caminhado a pé. O trabalho destaca a importância da especificação de modelos em estudos de WTP e documenta a comparação entre diferentes especificações para um mesmo estudo de caso.

In willingness-to-pay (WTP) studies, stated preference (SP) data are analyzed by developing econometric models. However, the variation of WTP across different model specifications has not been studied adequately. This paper reports a comparison of various econometric models and estimated WTP values with reference to a case study of rural feeder service to bus stop. Econometric models included Multinomial Logit (MNL), Heteroskedastic Extreme Value (HEV), Nested Logit (NL), Covariance Heterogeneity Nested Logit (CHNL), and Random Parameter Logit (RPL). Various econometric models are found to be consistent and acceptable in terms of signs of coefficient estimates, statistical significance of coefficient estimates and overall goodness of fit. The WTP values are found to vary across different model specifications, although the variations are not consistent and predominant for all attributes. In the present case study, the effect of model specification is found predominant on WTP for a reduction in access walking distance. Also, RPL models accounting for deterministic heterogeneity are found superior to other econometric models such as MNL, HEV, NL, CHNL and RPL models accounting for only random heterogeneity. The work highlights the importance of model specification in WTP studies.