The 3rd International Conference on Transportation Information and Safety, June 25 – June 28, 2015, Wuhan, P. R.

China

Study on Traffic Safety Evaluation of Urban Bus Stop

LU Feng WANG Yunlong
People’s Public Security University of China Beijing Traffic Management Bureau
Beijing, P. R. China Beijing, P. R. China
lufeng@ppsuc.edu.cn wangyunlong667@163.com

Abstract—In urban bus stop and its neighboring area, traffic proposed. On the basis of application on traffic safety
conflicts among buses, other vehicles and non-motor vehicles comprehensive evaluation method into traffic safety
happen frequently, and cause traffic accidents to occur easily. In evaluation of specific urban bus stops, the improving measures
this paper, traffic safety situation in urban bus stop was taken as of reducing traffic conflict had been then presented.
study object. Method of traffic safety comprehensive evaluation
based on traffic conflict technology being applied, some issues on
traffic safety evaluation of urban bus stop were explored. In the II. ANALYSIS OF URBAN BUS STOP
process of traffic safety evaluation, the first task was the analysis
of traffic conflict in urban bus stop. Secondly, traffic conflict A. Selecting a Template (Heading 2)
survey in urban bus stop had been done and the traffic conflict In this paper, the curbside bus stop in the road section of
data gotten. Finally, summarized the effects of two aspects of two lanes in each direction as well as median barrier and non-
conflict rate and average conflict severity, traffic safety motor vehicle isolation guardrail, a common type of urban bus
comprehensive evaluation model of urban bus stop had been stop in Beijing, was taken as studying object.
proposed, and the effectiveness and practicability of this method
had been verified by case study. The study results suggest that
method of traffic safety comprehensive evaluation based on
traffic conflict technology is an effective tool on traffic safety
evaluation of urban bus stop.

Keywords—urban bus stop; traffic conflict; conflict rate;

average conflict severity

I. INTRODUCTION
Urban bus stops, with the consideration of traffic safety
and traffic order of bus stops as well as pedestrian
accessibility to bus stops, are usually placed on both sides of Fig. 1. Diagram of urban bus stop.
urban road along the route [1]. While buses approaching bus
stops, boarding and alighting passengers, leaving bus stops,
the characteristics of traffic flow will be significantly TABLE I. PRINCIPAL STYLES OF TRAFFIC CONFLICT IN THREE PHASES
influenced [2]. The traffic safety situation of urban bus stop is Principal styles Principal styles
worsened by this traffic conflict between buses, other vehicles Phases of traffic conflict of traffic conflict
and non-motor vehicles [3]. in the inner side lane in the outer side lane
diverging conflict between
Due to the special location of bus stop in urban road Entering bus and other vehicles, diverging conflict between
network, buses, usually larger than other vehicles in size, phase merging conflict in other vehicles
affect surrounding traffic flow as they enter and leave bus stop vehicles
[4]. Compared with the situation in other road sections, traffic merging conflict while
Stopping
conflict in urban bus stop and its neighboring area become phase
decelerating, diverging -
larger in number and more serious in severity, as well as the conflict while accelerating
different conflict styles. diverging conflict in other
Leaving vehicles, merging conflict merging conflict between
In this paper, traffic safety situation in urban bus stop was phase between bus and other vehicles
taken as study object, some issues on traffic safety vehicles
comprehensive evaluation of urban bus stop were explored. As illustrated in Figure 1, when approaching bus stop, bus
The traffic conflict situation in urban bus stop and its should decelerate before entering the bus stop, stay and unload
neighboring area was analyzed. A traffic conflict survey had passengers as well as load passengers, then accelerate and
been conducted and the traffic conflict data had been collected. leave bus stop. This process could be divided into entering
Summarized the effects of two evaluation methods based on
phase, stopping phase and leaving phase. In each phase, traffic
conflict rate and average conflict severity, traffic safety
conflicts happened between buses and other vehicles in two
comprehensive evaluation model of urban bus stop had been
areas, the lane close to median barrier (inner side lane) and the

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The 3rd International Conference on Transportation Information and Safety, June 25 – June 28, 2015, Wuhan, P. R. China
lane close to non-motor vehicle isolation guardrail (outer side
lane). The principal styles of traffic conflict in three phases is
shown in Table I.
III. TRAFFIC CONFLICT SURVEY OF URBAN BUS STOP AND DATA
ANALYSIS
In order to explore the effect of traffic conflict on traffic
safety situation of urban bus stop and its neighboring area,
traffic conflict of two bus stops in Beijing had been
investigated, and the data had been analyzed.
A. Traffic conflict survey of urban bus stop
Sanzhongxiang southward bus stop and Sanzhongxiang
northward bus stop, two bus stops of Xingfeng South Street in
Daxing District of Beijing, were selected as traffic conflict
IV. TEMPLATE TRAFFIC SAFETY COMPREHENSIVE EVALUATION
survey locations. These two curbside bus stops, as illustrated
in Figure 2, with seven bus routes passed by, were set in the
road section of two lanes in each direction as well as median
barrier and non-motor vehicle isolation guardrail, had the
distance more than 150m from the nearest intersection, and no
one to keep passengers’ order in bus stop.
Fig. 2. Diagram of two bus stops in Xingfeng southstreet.
The traffic conflict survey had been done in May 2012,
from Monday to Friday. The time period of morning peak
(7:00~9:00) and evening peak (17:00~19:00) were selected as
survey time.
In the process of traffic conflict survey, manual
investigation method, associated with video identification
method, was applied to collect data of traffic flow and traffic
conflict[5]. All together 64 groups of survey data had been
collected.
B. data analysis of traffic conflict survey
The number of traffic conflict was 3074, with 1449 traffic
conflicts in 32 groups’ data of Sanzhongxiang northward bus
stop and 1625 traffic conflicts in 32 groups’ data of
Sanzhongxiang southward bus stop. After the survey data
being analyzed, features of traffic conflict in sampled bus
stops were presented as follows:
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• The number of traffic conflict varied within a certain
range, from 35 to 65 traffic conflicts of every 15
minutes.
• The difference of traffic conflict number among
entering phase, stopping phase and leaving phase was
significant, while the traffic conflict number in
stopping phase was the largest and in leaving phase
was the smallest.
• The percentage of traffic conflict number in serious
level, less serious level and least serious level were 9%,
35% and 56% respectively.
• Traffic conflict number had positive correlation with
traffic flow (pcu, passenger car unit).
OF URBAN BUS STOP
Two evaluation methods based on conflict rate and
average conflict severity were applied to evaluate the traffic
safety situation of urban bus stop. After the combination of
two evaluation values, the traffic safety comprehensive
evaluation value of urban bus stop was then generated.
A. Traffic safety evaluation of urban bus stop based on
conflict rate
TC/MPCU, the rate of average traffic conflict number per
hour (TC) and mixed passenger car unit per hour (MPCU),
was introduced to evaluate the traffic safety situation of urban
bus stop [6]. The survey data and the method of linear
interpolation being used, traffic safety levels and their
evaluation values based on conflict rate were determined, as
shown in Table II.
TABLE II. TRAFFIC SAFETY LEVELS AND THEIR EVALUATION VALUES
BASED ON TC/MPCU
Traffic Traffic safety Evaluation
TC/MPCU
safety level situation value, X
A most safe <0.01 9~10
B safe 0.01~0.02 8~9
C critical safe 0.02~0.03 7~8
D not safe >0.03 6
B. Traffic safety evaluation of urban bus stop based on
average conflict severity
Fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method was introduced,
and 12 evaluation indexes were selected to evaluate the
average conflict severity of urban bus stop.
The evaluation indexes included: law abiding degree of
bus driver (C1), driving skill of bus driver (C2), law abiding
degree of other vehicles’ driver (C3), driving skill of other
vehicles’ driver (C4), bus passenger boarding order (C5), bus
type (C6) , maintenance degree of bus (C7), bus stop type (C8),
The 3rd International Conference on Transportation Information and Safety, June 25 – June 28, 2015, Wuhan, P. R. China

bus stop location (C9), guidance signs and markings (C10), Same as traffic safety levels above mentioned, traffic safety
traffic order (C11), and time period (C12). comprehensive evaluation levels and their evaluation values
were shown in Table IV.
Similar to traffic safety levels based on conflict rate, with
consideration of the inverse relationship between average
conflict severity and traffic safety level, traffic safety levels TABLE IV. TRAFFIC SAFETY COMPREHENSIVE EVALUATION LEVELS AND
THEIR EVALUATION VALUES
and their evaluation values based on average conflict severity
were then determined, as shown in Table III. Comprehensive Comprehensive Traffic safety
evaluation value, Z evaluation level situation
TABLE III. TRAFFIC SAFETY LEVELS AND THEIR EVALUATION VALUES Z>81 A most safe
BASED ON AVERAGE CONFLICT SEVERITY
64<Z”81 B safe
Traffic Average conflict Traffic safety Evaluation
safety level severity situation level value, V 49<Z”64 C critical safe
A most slighe most safe 9 Z”49 D not safe
B slight safe 8

C normal critical safe 7 the According to comprehensive evaluation value Z in

D serious not safe 6 above table, traffic safety comprehensive evaluation level of
urban bus stop would be determined. After the analysis of
evaluation result based on the average conflict severity,
According to the method of fuzzy comprehensive principal influencing factors of traffic safety in urban bus stop
evaluation, fuzzy evaluation matrix K could be generated by were identified to aim to propose traffic safety improvement
using the product of the weighting vectors W and the fuzzy measures [7].
identification matrix R.
K=W·R V. CASE STUDY OF TRAFFIC SAFETY COMPREHENSIVE
EVALUATION OF URBAN BUS STOP
ª r11 r12 r13 r14 º Sanzhongxiang southward bus stop and Sanzhongxiang
«r r22 r23 r24 » northward bus stop of Xingfeng South Street in Daxing
= (w1 , w2 , w3 , w4 ) ⋅ « 22 » District were selected to comprehensively evaluate the traffic
«" " " "» safety situation.
« »
¬ r121 r122 r123 r124 ¼ A. Analysis of traffic safety comprehensive evaluation of
sampled bus stops
= (k1 , k2 , k3 , k4 ) The evaluation result based on conflict rate was shown in
(1)
Table V.
According to fuzzy evaluation matrix, Traffic safety level
could be determined by using the following formula.
TABLE V. TRAFFIC SAFETY EVALUATION RESULT BASED ON CONFLICT
k ′ = max (k1 , k2 , k3 , k4 ) (2) RATE

TC/ Traffic safety

Traffic safety was in the corresponding level that k’ Sampled bus stop MPCU TC X
MPCU level
belonged, and the evaluation value Y could be calculate. Sanzhongxiang
875.5 19.5 0.022 7.777 C
southward bus stop
Y = k1 × v1 + k2 × v2 + k3 × v3 + k4 × v4 Sanzhongxiang
(3) 832 15.25 0.018 8.167 B
northward bus stop
The evaluation result based on average conflict severity
C. Traffic safety comprehensive evaluation model of urban
was shown in Table VI.
bus stop
With the consideration of traffic safety being affected by
TABLE VI. TRAFFIC SAFETY EVALUATION RESULT BASED ON AVERAGE
traffic conflict rate and conflict severity comparably, the CONFLICT SEVERIT
product of evaluation value based on conflict rate and
evaluation value based on average conflict severity was used, Sampled bus stop Evaluation matrix Y
Traffic
and the traffic safety comprehensively evaluate model safety level
(TSCEM) of urban bus stop was then generated. Sanzhongxiang [0.247ˈ0.429ˈ0.244ˈ
7.843 B
southward bus stop 0.080]
Z=X×Y (4) Sanzhongxiang [0.316ˈ0.354ˈ0.278ˈ
7.934 B
northward bus stop 0.052]
Where Z is traffic safety comprehensive evaluation value of
urban bus stop, X is evaluation value based on conflict rate, The result of traffic safety comprehensive evaluation of
and Y is evaluation value based on average conflict severity. urban bus stop was shown in Table VII.

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The 3rd International Conference on Transportation Information and Safety, June 25 – June 28, 2015, Wuhan, P. R. China
TABLE VII. RESULT OF TRAFFIC SAFETY COMPREHENSIVE EVALUATION
OF URBAN BUS STOP
Sampled bus stop
Comprehensive evaluation
Traffic safety level
value, Z
Sanzhongxiang
60.995 C safety situation evaluation of urban bus stop, the traffic
southward bus stop
Sanzhongxiang
64.797 B
northward bus stop
The evaluation result of traffic safety shown that the traffic
safety situation of Sanzhongxiang southward bus stop and
Sanzhongxiang northward bus stop were in critical safe level
and safe level respectively. The evaluation result based on the
average conflict severity shown that the evaluation values of
C1, C2, C5 and C8 were very low, suggested that law abiding
degree of bus driver, driving skill of bus driver, bus passenger
boarding order and bus stop type affected traffic safety
situation significantly.
In the sampled bus stops, the situation of above mentioned
factors influencing traffic safety were almost the same.
According to traffic conflict survey data, the traffic conflict
numbers in stopping phase were nearly the same of that both
in entering phase and leaving phase, and most the traffic
conflict in serious level and less serious level were related to
bus. The bus stop type (C8) was the first major factor
influencing traffic safety of sampled bus stops, and law
abiding degree of bus driver (C1) was the secondary major
factor. In Sanzhongxiang southward bus stop, influencing
factors affected traffic safety more seriously.
B. Suggestion of traffic safety improvement measures on
sampled bus stops
According to analysis results, some traffic safety
improvement measures on sampled bus stops were proposed.
• To replace curbside bus stops with bus bays, for the
purpose of reducing traffic conflict number and
congestion degree of sampled bus stops and their
neighboring areas [8].
• To enhance education and training of bus drivers, to
inform them traffic risk in the process of bus entering
and leaving bus stop, to aid them familiar with risk
avoiding method, and to check randomly,
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• To assign people or install guardrail to keep passengers
loading and unloading rapidly and orderly,
VI. CONCLUSIONS
With application of traffic conflict technology into traffic
conflict situation in the process of bus approaching and
leaving bus stop were analyzed. After statistical analysis of
survey data, traffic conflict distribution of sampled bus stops
was determined. On the basis of application on traffic safety
comprehensive evaluation method in specific urban bus stops,
the improving measures of reducing traffic conflict were then
presented.
The traffic safety study on urban bus stop based on the
traffic conflict technology provided a new research method
and idea for those urban traffic environment. The traffic safety
comprehensive evaluation model, summarized effects of
conflict rate and the average conflict severity, was good at
traffic safety comprehensive evaluation of urban bus stop, and
provided an effective method for the study of such problems.
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