Evaluating the Effects of Traffic Congestion and Passenger Load on Feeder Bus Fuel and Emissions Compared with Passenger Car

To reduce vehicles' fuel and emissions, bus is considered as an environmental travel mode with high efficiency. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effects of traffic congestion and passenger load on feeder bus fuel and emissions compared with passenger car. Data collection was conducted in a selected feeder bus route. Fuel and emissions were estimated using the Motor Vehicle Emissions Simulation (MOVES). The effects of traffic congestion and passenger load were analyzed from the aspect of per person per kilometer fuel and emissions. Results showed that total fuel and emissions of a feeder bus during peak hours presented an increasing trend compared with the values during off-peak hours. Due to the effect of passenger load, per person per kilometer fuel and emissions during peak hours showed much lower than the values during off-peak hours. Besides, we found that there are at least 16 passengers in a feeder bus resulting in the same value of per person per kilometer fuel consumption compared with a full loaded passenger car. As for emission of carbon monoxide, the number of passengers should be larger than 15. With our result, bus can't be regarded as an environmental travel mode in terms of emissions of nitrogen oxide because of using diesel fuel. Findings of this study can help better understand the operations of feeder bus on fuel consumption and emissions. The environmental travel mode was discussed with the result of comparison between feeder bus and passenger car, which is helpful to policy makers.