Abstract for: Planning a dedicated bus lane to decrease traffic congestion considering policy implementation

Traffic congestion is an annoying condition in urban areas wasting productive-time and acting as a source of air pollutant emission. Municipalities always try to solve this issue. One typical solution is using dedicated lanes for buses and getting tolls from private cars entering a specific street or region of the city. In this study, these two were mixed to have a push and pull policy using System Dynamics approach. The main focus was on implementation obstacles and steps. Maximum traveling time at peak hours was chosen as an indicator of the level of traffic congestion. Results showed that setting bus ticket price and toll price as the main controllable parameters influences the successfulness of the policy intensively. In optimistic cases, where for example there are small delays and no extra passengers from other paths, the optimal ratio of toll to ticket price is small (2.2). While in a pessimistic scenario, this ratio becomes larger (17.5). In other words, in any condition, the reward and economical punishment leverages can act together for achieving a desired traveling-time. Meanwhile, the level of comfort for passengers using the buses was considered as an important parameter that motivated them to use public transportation or not.