An experimental comparison of mathematical heavy-duty city bus models to evaluate passenger ride comfort induced by road roughness

ABSTRACT Mathematical models have been used widely to investigate the vehicle-passenger-infrastructure dynamical interaction; however, the responses of various heavy-duty city bus models to estimate ride comfort induced by road roughness are still unknown. In this study, the comparison of dynamical response of buses used in city transport is investigated based on multi-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) bus models developed in MATLAB/Simulink and correlated against passenger ride comfort criteria. The results showed that 9-DOF full bus model is the best option to estimate passenger ride comfort within an error of 2%, as compared to 5-DOF half and 3-DOF quarter bus models with 7% and 20% errors using one wheel-track, and 24% and 36% errors using two wheel-tracks, respectively. The error was calculated as the difference between simulated results from three bus models and the measured data. These mathematical bus models can be customized for estimating passenger ride comfort and surface roughness of dedicated bus/bus-rapid-transit lanes.