Road Transport Operations and Traffic Management
Domain 1 examines how a TGSRTC depot plans and controls bus services: schedules, crew duties, vehicle productivity and traffic flow at junctions. Questions often ask you to calculate an operating ratio or choose the right traffic-management measure.
Core operating metrics
- Load factor = passenger-km ÷ seat-km × 100. It measures how well available seating is used, not simply how full a bus looks at one stop.
- Fleet utilisation = buses on road ÷ buses held. Vehicle productivity is usually revenue-km per bus per day.
- Headway is the time gap between buses; frequency per hour = 60 ÷ headway in minutes.
- Effective km exclude dead mileage; only scheduled service km earn revenue.
- Traffic management uses PCU (passenger car units), saturation flow, signal cycle time and level of service (LOS).
Worked example
A 52-seat bus runs a 200 km trip and carries an average of 46 passengers. Load factor = (46 × 200) ÷ (52 × 200) × 100 = 9,200 ÷ 10,400 × 100 = 88.46%. If the depot runs 10 buses per hour, headway = 60 ÷ 10 = 6 minutes. If 8 of 10 buses are available, fleet utilisation is 80%.
Traps
Do not divide by scheduled km when the question gives effective km; do not count dead mileage as revenue km; do not average peak and off-peak load factors without weighting by km; and remember headway is a time gap, not a speed.