BUS PASSENGER WALKING DISTANCES AND WAITING TIMES: A SUMMER-WINTER COMPARISON

The results of this study demonstrated that measurement of bus passenger walking distances by means of tracing the exact path taken on large scale base maps, with the assistance of field surveyors is a fast and accurate method of determining walking distance distributions. Mean walking distances were found to be 322 and 329 metres for summer and winter conditions respectively. The 75th percentile was found to be 450 metres. Waiting times in winter were found to be less than those for summer for all ranges of headways. For headways under 600 seconds the average waiting time was found to be approximately one-half the headway. Beyond this point the use of this approximation will overstate the average waiting time which tended to 11 minutes for longer headways. Tests on the Calgary data showed that the assumption of random passenger arrivals is not valid. Detour factors were found to be greatest in suburban residential areas and smallest in industrial areas. On a city-wide basis detour factors were 1.18 and 1.24 for summer and winter respectively. The detour factor was found to decrease with increasing distance from the bus stop. For most bus passengers walking time exceeds waiting time. On a city-wide basis bus passengers were found to have an access component ratio of 55 percent walk and 45 percent wait in summer, and 65 percent walk and 35 percent wait in winter. (Author/TRRL)