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Abstract
Some of the least studied vehicle types in the urban and suburban traffic environment are school buses. Their dynamic deficiencies, as well as the two additional rules that govern their functionality versus other vehicles (no right-turn-on-red and stop at every railroad crossing), makes them a delay-inducing traffic participant. This thesis presents modeling and analysis of school bus traffic influence over a coordinated network of traffic signals. A comparison was made in a chosen specific set of measures of effectiveness: total vehicle delay and queue length. The financial impact was also analyzed using emissions as a measure of effectiveness. The real-world network was modeled, and analysis was performed with a state-of-the-art traffic microsimulation computer software, VISSIM. The effects were measured via both the analysis tools present in the software as well as through a third-party performance measurement software that relies on arrival data. This research positions itself as an alternative to a previously performed Traffic Impact Analysis (TIA) that looked at a new high school opening using Synchro software which does not explicitly account for school buses behavior. The results confirm that there exists a quantifiable performance decrease for the signalized corridor. This was validated through analyzing simulation outputs and usage of advanced signal performance metrics.