Bus service time estimation model for a curbside bus stop

•A new bus service time estimation model (CPSTM) considering buses queueing for curbside bus stop is proposed.•Bus service time on curbside bus stop is calculated via compound Poisson process.•Probability of each scenario and its associated service time are computed.•Error measurements of CPSTM are acceptable.•Performance of CPSTM outperforms the basic model.

The bus service time at bus stop areas occupies a large proportion of the total on-road bus operational time. Curbside bus stops are very common in urban transit systems, and the occurrence of bus queues forming at the entry and departure area of bus stop is quite frequent. To estimate the service time at a curbside bus stop, a compound Poisson service time estimation model (CPSTM) is proposed. The CPSTM considers the interactions among arriving buses and number of boarding and alighting passengers. Realistic observational data are acquired for a representative bus stop. Four different scenarios are presented to estimate the total expected service time. The service time estimation of each bus line is obtained via the CPSTM, and the effectiveness of the proposed CPSTM is demonstrated. The results show that the employment of real-time data is not required for accurate service time estimation.