Travel time prediction for Bus Rapid Transmit using a statistics-based probabilistic method

The Bus Rapid Transmit (BRT) system is one of the rapid development forms of transit priority in China. In this paper, a probabilistic method is proposed to predict the travel time for BRT by analyzing historical traffic-data. The line 1 of BRT in Jinan, China, which has been equipped with GPS units, is selected to provide the collected data. The time of day is split into consecutive time intervals which will be supposed as subsets. For each of the subsets, expectations, variances and probability distributions of travel times exist, and demonstrate the dispersions and uncertainties. This method is put forward to present the probability distributions of travel time. The confidence intervals corresponding to the given confidence levels can be further obtained. Finally, the confidence intervals combined with the expectations of travel time, will be the feasible and informative predictions.