Lessening bus journey times on congested road infrastructures: micro-modelling methodology. Case study in the region of Liverpool, United Kingdom

Within the framework of their Local Transport Plan (LTP), a five-year transport programme running until 2011, authorities of the British Metropolitan County of Merseyside are seeking for ways to provide their territory with a safer, more reliable and more sustainable transport network. The key target is to mitigate congestion on the strategic road infrastructures, through a significant lessening of global journey times. In that purpose, elaborate microsimulation models are required to be built for eleven representative roads of the county, allowing to carry out relevant traffic testing and further analyses. This document deals with one of the key routes' modelling process: the A552 corridor of Birkenhead, one of Liverpool's neighbouring cities. It depicts precisely the utter building methodology which was has been used to lead to a reliable and highly detailed model, from the preliminary context study to the final model validation, and allows to observe how meticulous and painstaking the procedure must be. The work's ultimate aim reckons bus users in particular: a range of options and scenarios testing will be subsequently achieved, to find out possible improvements regarding bus journey times. These tests, that will be reviewed through later reports, will be made possible thanks to the model considered in this document.