On the utilisation of dedicated bus lanes for ride-splitting services

Abstract

The available capacity in transportation networks is distributed among multiple modes, with some benefiting from an exclusive usage while others competing over the same space. Because the average occupancy of buses is the highest, they are usually allocated dedicated lanes where the speed is larger than in the rest of the network. Private vehicles and ride-hailing drivers use the remaining portion of space which is highly subject to congestion. In this study, we propose to mitigate traffic congestion in the main network by allowing only pooled ride-hailing drivers to use the underutilized capacity in bus lanes. By modeling the accumulation in the system under steady-state using a Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram theory, we show that the optimal strategy that minimizes delays for multi-modal users occurs when a fraction of the pooling vehicles uses the bus network. An adequate pricing discount for pooled trips drives the network towards this system optimum.