IMPROVING THE LOCATION OF TEMPORARY PARKING SPOTS FOR TOURIST BUSES IN DOWNTOWN BEIJING

ABSTRACT

 

The mode choice of tourists around the world can differ greatly. For example, travelers within the United States tend to drive to their destination or rent a car locally to do sightseeing. However, tourists in China typically choose to use tourist buses, operated by travel agencies.  Due to the excessive number of visitors in many scenic spots in China, the scenic spots encourage visitors to take group tours instead of individual tours since the group tours are easier to manage and arrange. Additionally, China’s car-rental industry is less popular and less convenient than America’s. As a result, tourist buses are commonly used by visitors. However, the large number of tourist buses within the central cities leads to many traffic problems. Tourist buses require parking spots on roadways to unload and load guests, which causes disruption to the traffic flow especially in the downtown of Beijing. Currently, the regulations for the parking spots for tourist buses is not well informed, and leads to large traffic jams and delays within the central city. To this end, the goal of this work is to provide general guidelines for regulating the parking spots of tourist buses within central cities, and as a case study use microscopic simulation to improve the traffic conditions in central Beijing by relocating tourist bus stops. The results of this work show that traffic delays in central Beijing can be reduced by up to 16.9% as a result of improving the parking locations.

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………………………………… vi

List of Tables………………………………………………………………………………………………………. vii

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………………………….. viii

Chapter 1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………… 1

1.1 Background………………………………………………………………………………………………. 1

1.2 Project Scope…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 2

1.3 Motivation………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4

1.4 Literature Review………………………………………………………………………………………. 5

1.5 Research Goal and Methodology…………………………………………………………………. 8

1.6 Organizations………………………………………………………………………………………….. 10

Chapter 2 Qualitative discussion of factors impacting traffic conditions…………………….. 12

2.1 Temporary Parking Location for Tourist Bus………………………………………………. 12

2.1.1 Analysis on the Factors Influencing the Selection of Parking Spaces …… 12

2.1.2 Road Parking and Intersection Parking Site Analysis………………………….. 14

2.1.3 The Principle of Parking Site Selection……………………………………………… 15

2.2 Selection on the Type of Parking Spaces…………………………………………………….. 16

2.3 Parking Duration……………………………………………………………………………………… 20

2.4 Size of Parking Spaces……………………………………………………………………………… 22

Chapter 3 Quantitative discussion of factors impacting traffic conditions…………………… 23

3.1 Factors considered……………………………………………………………………………………. 23

3.2 Impact of Car Traffic Flow on Parking Spots………………………………………………. 24

3.2.1 On-street Parking Spot…………………………………………………………………….. 24

3.2.2 Bay Parking Spot……………………………………………………………………………. 26

3.2.3 Experiment Result Analysis…………………………………………………………….. 28

3.3 Impact of the First Coach’s Parking Position………………………………………………. 30

Chapter 4 Case Study…………………………………………………………………………………………… 35

4.1 Simulation Data……………………………………………………………………………………….. 35

4.1.1 Input of Traffic Flow and Overview of Road Network………………………… 35

4.1.2 Distribution of Attractions and Parking Demand for Each Attraction …… 39

4.1.3 Current Temporary Parking Spots…………………………………………………….. 41

4.1.4 Assumptions………………………………………………………………………………….. 43

4.2 Bus Stop Relocation…………………………………………………………………………………. 43

4.2.1 Parking Duration…………………………………………………………………………….. 44

4.2.2 Location and Type for Parking Spots………………………………………………… 44

4.2.3 Length of Each Parking Space………………………………………………………….. 51

4.3 Simulation Result and Relocation Scheme………………………………………………….. 52

Chapter 5 Contribution and Future Work……………………………………………………………….. 56

5.1 Contribution……………………………………………………………………………………………. 56

5.2 Recommendations for Future Work……………………………………………………………. 57

References……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 58

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Background

In Beijing, due to the large population and the development of the tourism industry, tourist buses are a travelers’ main mode of transport. The advantage of using tourist buses is its large capacity, which can release the traffic pressure on the road network. In downtown Beijing, there are many closely spaced attractions. Each attraction has its own tourist demand, and hence, the parking supply for tourist buses needs to match this demand. When the supply does not match the demand, this will lead to increased delay on the road network.

Currently, the locations of the temporary parking spots in downtown Beijing do not match the parking demand. Additionally, simple regulations on the parking duration are lacking leading to some tourist buses dwelling at these locations for longer than necessary to load and unload passengers. Hence, tourist buses cause long traffic jams and traffic delays in downtown Beijing.

The goal of this work is: 1) to describe systematic guidelines for city transportation planners for implementation and regulation of parking spots for tourist buses, and 2) to improve the placement of temporary parking spots for tourist buses in downtown Beijing to decrease traffic delays. To achieve this goal, a qualitative discussion on the impacts of the location of parking spots, the type of parking spots and the parking duration on the delays for tourist buses and general traffic is provided. Next, to improve the placement of temporary parking spots for tourist buses and reduce the total traffic delay in downtown of Beijing, a VISSIM simulation is used to evaluate the traffic flow and delay in target area. In VISSIM, the entire road network of downtown Beijing is constructed using basic traffic data. This simulation is used first to simulate and evaluate current traffic flow operation. Next, using the quantitative discussion, multiple different parking locations, types and durations are tested to determine a setting that will significantly improve upon the existing conditions.

The benefits of this improvement are considerable both for the visitors and general users of the traffic network. For visitors, they can save more time in traffic and spend more time doing sightseeing. For the road network, it can improve transport efficiency, reduce operating costs and save energy.

1.2 Project Scope

Beijing is one of the largest tourist cities in China. Its road network is a grid network with several freeways around the city. Beijing road network is shown in Figure 1-1. The research area is in the center of Beijing, and is bounded by West Fourth Avenue on the west, East Fourth Avenue on the east, Peace Street on the north, and Zhushikou Avenue on the south. The research area is a total of 62 square kilometers, only 6% of the total area of Beijing, but it contains more than 50% of the tourist buses and more than 70% of Beijing’s popular attractions. According to field surveys and data collection, traffic congestion in the area is very serious and there are many conflicts between tourist buses and regular traffic, partially caused by improper setting of parking spaces. This thesis simulates the traffic operation of the research area, and evaluates the total delay. Additionally, by providing quantitative guidelines and utilizing these for the research area, an improved plan for the placement and regulation of tourist buses is proposed.

 

Figure 1-1 Beijing road network

Since transportation networks are inherently complex, any improvements or modifications applied to one road will inevitably influence other parts of the network. Therefore, this simulation will include all the main roads and important secondary roads in the study area, to make the results as accurate as possible. All the roads included in the simulation are shown in red in Figure 1-2. The blue links are the remainder of the road network.

1.3 Motivation

With the continuous improvement of people’s living standards, more and more people choose to travel during holidays. According to statistics, in 2015, Beijing received 273 million tourists and grew by 10% annually. Beijing city center contains more than 70% of Beijing’s famous scenic spots, including the National Palace, the National Museum, Tiananmen Square, Beihai Park and so on, which prompts lots of tourist buses to enter the downtown of Beijing.  These attractions are depicted with green dots in Figure 1-3. Therefore, Beijing’s traffic pressure is increasing a lot, especially in Beijing downtown.  In addition to this, the office area for Chinese national leaders is also located in the heart of Beijing so traffic jams can also increase their travel time, which is shown as the yellow dot in Figure 1-3.

 

Figure 1-3 The distribution of attractions in research area

Hence, it is necessary to reduce traffic congestion in the center of Beijing. An important step toward alleviating the traffic congestion is to improve the placement of tourist bus drop-off and pick-up locations in the road network.

1.4 Literature Review

There is a limited amount of previous work that consider tourist buses, their impacts on traffic and how to reduce their negative impacts. Some insights into this problem can be gained by considering public transportation buses, and how bus stops impact traffic flow. Most experts and scholars focus their attention on the impacts of the location of bus stops, the types of bus stops (bus bays or on-street parking spots), and the size of stops (such as the size of the platform) on regular traffic [1] . In many cities, road congestion is becoming more and more serious due to the development of public transport. A significant portion of road congestion in urban areas can be caused by public transportation vehicles.

The parking duration depends on how long it takes passengers to get on and off the bus. It has been shown that there is no difference in the average service time for each successive passenger to board, except that the first passenger may require less time due to the ready storage area on the steps between the bus door and the driver, and the minimum service time is approximately half of the average service time [2] . Moreover, the distribution of passengers along a bus route follows a negative binomial distribution such that the parking duration at each individual bus stop along a route is also influenced [3] . Additionally, there are many general determinants of bus dwell time, including the size of buses, bus routes and station utilization rate. The maximum dwell time should be determined by passengers’ activities and door opening time [4] .

Two different types of bus stops, curb-side and bus bay, are typically used in practice.  TCRP Report 19 provides some information on the advantages and disadvantages of each type of bus stop [5] . The curb-side stop can provide minimal delay to buses and can be relocated easily. On the other hand, the advantages of bus bays include that it is safer for passengers and buses, and it can minimize delays to through traffic. Additionally, this literature described the disadvantages of these types of bus stops. The curb-side stops can cause traffic congestion since a part of traffic must queue behind parked buses and some bus drivers can make dangerous maneuvers when changing lanes. Bus bays may cause delays to buses when trying to re-enter traffic. Also, the relocation process for a bus bay is difficult and expensive [5] . Additionally, this work provides some guidelines on when to use bus bays such as, traffic flows exceeding 250 vehicles/hour/lane, traffic speeds greater than 40 mph, more than 10 buses per hour, and dwell times that exceed 30 seconds per bus. Some of these results are confirmed by microscopic simulation of the different parameters [6] . Analytical work on comparing bus bays and curbside bus stops has also shown that for high bus passenger occupancies, low car demands, and short bus dwell times curbside bus stops would reduce the overall passenger delay [7] .

Several studies have considered the number of berths required at each parking spot. The number of vehicle berths at each bus station can impact car capacity since more vehicles berths will take up more road space. The number of berths needed for each bus station can be determined by the arrival frequency of buses in an hour and the maximum number of cars passing the bus-stop area [1] . An additional issue is that due to underutilization of some bus berths, the effective number of parking berths may not be the same as the total number provided [8] . Simulation work has found that the efficient number of parking berths was less than expected, and that the dwelling behavior was the main factor for the reduced number of effective spots [4] . Additional work has tried to address this problem by providing heuristic berth assignment plans to improve the utilization of parking berths [9] .

Some studies have explored the impact of bus stops near signalized intersections on car traffic. Analytical models to describe the changes in car delay due to bus stops near signalized intersections were formulated and used to determine where to locate bus stops to improve car operations. Additionally, a bus-holding strategy is proposed to reduce the impact of buses on cars [10] .  A similar study considered using Variational theory of kinematic waves in a moving-time coordinate system to calculate the loss of capacity caused by an obstruction, which could include a stopped bus, near a signalized intersection [11] . A deterministic model was formulated to explain the deceleration, acceleration and queue interference of buses, concluding that far-side bus stop placement increases car delays by less than near-side bus stops in most situations [12] .

Based on the analysis of the existing literature, the article will analyze the location and design of parking spots for tourist buses from the qualitative and quantitative perspectives.

1.5 Research Goal and Methodology

With the continuous development of tourism, tourist buses have been adopted by more and more cities as a choice of transportation for visitors, however, only a limited amount of guidance on how to provide parking spots for these tourist buses exist. The purpose of this research is to provide qualitative guidelines on the impacts of different types of bus stops and different location of bus stops, and conduct a case study to implement the findings in Beijing, China. The research approach is shown in Figure 1-4.

 

 

 

Figure 1-4 Approach of research

The methodology of the article includes the qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis. The qualitative analysis is based on literature and experiences learned from implemented projects. The location, parking duration, type and size are discussed qualitatively as four factors to consider when determining an improvement program. The quantitative analysis is based on the literature and simulation experiments to study the impact of car traffic and first bus parking position. A microscopic simulation in the VISSIM simulation environment is used to conduct the simulation experiments [13] . VISSIM is an effective tool for evaluating traffic engineering design and urban planning. The simulation is based on driving behaviors, which are used to model and analyze the operation of urban traffic and public transport vehicles under various traffic conditions.

The basic data of the VISSIM simulation contains the traffic environment (road network, signal control, speed limit, etc.), the driver behavior (following car, lane overtaking, etc.), vehicle parameters, traffic demand characteristics and other traffic elements. The VISSIM concept diagram is shown in Figure 1-5. This is used to conduct the case study implementation program considered for downtown Beijing.

 

Figure 1-5 VISSIM concept diagram

1.6 Organizations

This thesis consists of five chapters. Following the introduction, Chapter 2 presents a qualitative discussion of factors which may influence the setting of parking spots. The location, parking duration, type and size of parking spots are important factors to consider, because these factors can affect the rationality of temporary parking spots for tourist buses. All the factors are included in the elements that will be improved when doing the simulation of road network in Beijing downtown.

Chapter 3 presents a quantitative and simulation analysis of two factors that may impact the setting of parking spaces. These factors consist of the traffic flow near parking spots and the first bus’s location. The traffic flow will largely impact the network delay caused by temporary parking spaces and the parking location of first coach will influence follow-up tourist buses parking behaviors, especially for the road parking spots.

Chapter 4 presents the case study including all the data, the improvement process and the simulation results. Based on the simulation results, an improved parking policy for the city of Beijing is provided. Finally, Chapter 5 will discuss some issues that are not addressed in the thesis and potential future work.

IMPROVING THE LOCATION OF TEMPORARY PARKING SPOTS FOR TOURIST BUSES IN DOWNTOWN BEIJING

Sharing is caring!