Understanding what elements influence a bus driver to use headway regularity tools: case study of Santiago public transit system

Abstract

The effectiveness of the control strategies applied in real-time to maintain regular headways between buses, especially those operating without schedules, requires the driver to execute the instruction from central control. This work aims to understand how drivers approach the tools that seek to control the regularity of the headways. Our study is conducted on the Transantiago, the public transport system of Santiago in Chile. Buses operating two routes of this service provider have been equipped with a headway control tool that provides drivers instructions to improve headway regularity. Our results show experienced drivers (over 50 years) perceive being faster and maintaining more regular headways than younger ones. They also appear to be more reluctant to use onboard headway control tools. Less experienced drivers recognize the accuracy of the information delivered and assure that it has improved their driving performance