Stochastic macroscopic traffic simulation modeling for impacts of traffic chaos of microbuses

A major problem detected on most of the cairo main roads such as the ring road is the disorganized traffic of microbuses. although no exclusive bus lane or bus stops were defined in the original road design,the intense operation of microbuses has virtually created informal bus stops along the roads. the objective of this paper is study impact of traffic chaos of microbuses on multi-lane highways by the use of a stochastic macroscopic traffic simulation modeling approach. the developed model was used to analyze 10 different combinations of volume to capacity ratios v/c and the microbus headway times. then a metamodel for post-simulation analysis was estimated to approximate the average speed upstream the microbus stop. results showed that propagation of queue due to 5-min microbus headway is double that of the 10-min microbus headway,at traffic v/c ratio equals 0.9. propagation of queue could reach about 1.4km in case of v/c equals 0.9 and 5 minute microbus headway. results of the metamodel showed that 5-minute microbus headway can cause a reduction in speeds of about 7 km/hr as compared with the case of 10-minute microbus headway.