Speed of urban public transport as criterion of the justification of spatial and time-based prioritization

Prioritization of urban public transport is an urgent task in the urban transport system, which is congested with traffic in most cities. The constant growth in traffic volumes and the need for movement of urban residents poses many challenges for local governments, which are quite difficult to solve, especially in cities with formed built-up areas. Travel time constantly increases while the road network's capacity remains unchanged. In these circumstances, it is necessary to resort to various prioritization methods because it is impossible to satisfy all the needs of residents for travel by private car to any transport area of the city. Over the past decade, the share of people using micromobility vehicles (bicycles, electric scooters, etc.) has been increasing. Still, this method of transportation is not widespread and cannot provide large volumes of movement in cities, especially those with large sizes. For this reason, more and more attention is being paid to prioritizing urban public transport, which is capable of moving large numbers of people around the city and surrounding areas. Given that it is difficult to find additional capacity reserves, space and time have to be taken away from those users of the transport network who use private automobile transport to ensure priority for urban public transport. The traffic volumes, traffic flow composition, and average speed of urban public transport on sections of the road network were determined by research results. It became the initial data for simulation modeling of the state of traffic flow under different methods of prioritization of urban public transport. Simulation modeling has identified sections of the road network that differ in delay in the movement of urban public transport and general traffic flow depending on the application of spatial and/or time-based prioritization. As a result, using the example of the road network of Lviv city, where urban public transport routes are designed, six types of segments were identified, which differ in the peculiarities of traffic flow and planning characteristics. The study results make it possible to justify implementing various organizational and regulatory measures to manage the general traffic flow and urban public transport without changing the geometric parameters of the road network within the existing “red lines” defined by the General Development Plan. Unlike the existing regulatory requirements, in practice, it is possible to identify sections of the road network that require different types of prioritization of urban public transport, depending on its volumes, regularity of movement, volume of passenger flow, etc. Notably, these studies recommended measures that could reduce travel time based not on the number of vehicles but on the number of people inside them.