Thermal comfort and passive design strategy of bus shelters

Bus shelters are semi-outdoor spaces with shelter provided in the form of a roof. The thermal comfort of bus shelters is as important as that of buses themselves in improving the quality of the experience of bus travel. This work conducted field experiments involving five bus shelters combined with numerical simulations using the RayMan model. The analytical results show that bus shelters that provide more shelter help reduce passenger exposure to direct solar radiation and provide comfortable spaces in which to shelter from the weather in Taiwan. Designers should also consider local sunlight patterns and simulate the sun duration for whole year in advance to create comfortable bus shelters.