Understanding the factors that affect the bus bunching events’ duration

Dealing with bus bunching is a challenge for bus operators, as it strongly affects perception on the level of service provided by buses. Despite the growing interest on bus bunching, existing studies have focused on its frequency, neglecting potential differences in the intensity of bus bunching events and, thus, in the associated effect on passengers. This study focuses on the duration of bus bunching events, as a measure of both the problem magnitude and its impact on passengers. Hazard-based duration models are employed to bus bunching event data from the Athens Public Transport Network to estimate the effect of and understand the factors that affect bus bunching event durations. The Lognormal Accelerated Failure Time model performs best among parametric models, with deep survival analysis achieving superior predictive accuracy. Results show that temporal factors, such as the afternoon peaks and weekends affect bunching duration. Further, physical and operational characteristics of the initial point in a sequence of bus stop instances also have an impact on the duration of bunching. Overall, results can shed light at the contributing factors of bus bunching events duration and help operators prioritize interventions at the level of bus stops.