A research study submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Civil Engineering

Research Studies Project Report (M. Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2003

Inefficient and ineffective bus operations have been mentioned as one of the major causes of poor bus service in Hanoi. In order to provide a reasonable suggestion for bus service improvement, performance analysis was applied to identify operational deficiencies and their causes at the three bus routes of bus operations. The perf01mance analysis was applied within the three selected bus routes (No.18, No.32, No.34) in Hanoi to identify their operating deficiencies. Analyses of bus operations: bus headways, bus travel time, bus reliability were conducted and compared among these three bus routes. In addition, the questionnaire surveys were also conducted on the bus users and their perceptions toward the bus service in Hanoi. Futhuremore, the performance indicators through the resource, the service efficiency and the effectiveness were analyzed on these routes and their performances were also compared with that of Bangkok's bus service. Also, GIS analysis was applied to identify the operating deficiencies and the cause of poor operations of these bus routes. It was found that among the three selected bus routes, bus No.18 and bus No.34 were identified as deficient. Among the poor performance operational characteristics found in this study are low service distance, insufficient bus operation, poor social effectiveness and low passenger trips. Therefore, in order to minimize or eliminate these deficiencies, recommended measures are proposed in this research to improve the bus services in Hanoi.