Detection of Bus Bunching through the Analysis of Prevalent Public Transport Control Data

Abstract

Bus bunching describes a phenomenon that is familiar to many public transport users. Two buses, running according to a scheduled frequency, arrive at a stop in immediate succession. In most cases, the leading vehicle is delayed. The delay causes an increasing number of waiting passengers at the stops. Through this higher number of boarding and alighting passengers, the dwell time of the leading bus lengthens and by that also its delay. This problem is made visible using freely available public transport control data of two routes from Sydney, Australia. To validate the bunching events captured from the bus control data, General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data is used. The buses’ positioning logs are traced to determine the distance between bunched vehicles. Additionally, a direct association between late departures of buses induced by delay propagation from one direction and increased bunching occurrence in the opposite direction is observed.