Conditional Bus Priority at Signalized Intersections: Better Service with Less Traffic Disruption

Conditional priority for buses at signalized intersections means that late buses are given priority and early buses are not. This scheme is a method of operational control that improves service quality by keeping buses on schedule. A conditional bus priority implementation in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, is described. Results show the strong improvement in schedule adherence compared with a no-priority situation. Traffic impacts at an intersection were studied for three scenarios—no priority, absolute priority, and conditional priority. Compared with no priority, absolute priority increased delays significantly while conditional priority had almost no impact.