Identifying Chosen Public Transport Connections from GPS Observations

Transport planners around the world are currently searching for innovative strategies for customer-friendly and efficient public transport systems. An important element in this process is the understanding of the passengers' valuation of different elements of public transport trips. One challenge associated with this the observation of the actual passenger behaviour in all its complexity. One way to address this challenge is to use person-based global positioning system (GPS) devices for observing the public transport connections chosen by passengers. GPS-based studies have become increasingly popular in the last two decades and their advantages for observing and modelling car and bicycle route choice have been shown by many studies. However, for public transport connection choice modelling the processing routines to extract the chosen connections and their relevant attributes have so far been missing. This paper reports on a first implementation of such a procedure called "public transport map-matching". The basic idea is to first employ a car map-matching procedure for each stage of a public transport trip to determine the route within the public transport network. Then, this route is used to find the most likely public transport line and the respective boarding and alighting stops. Finally, the stages of the public transport trip are joined together including the access and egress stages by walk or bicycle. The procedure is tested using the data from an ongoing GPS study in Zurich - an area in Switzerland with a very dense public transport network.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADB40(1) Emerging Methods and Developments in Urban Activity and Travel Analysis.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Rieser-Schüssler, Nadine
  • Axhausen, Kay W
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2013-1-13 to 2013-1-17
• Date: 2013

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: 16p
• Monograph Title: TRB 92nd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Global Positioning System; Public transit; Route choice; Transit riders
• Uncontrolled Terms: Connections (Transportation); Map matching
• Geographic Terms: Zurich (Switzerland)
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01475760
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 13-0588
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 15 2013 9:48AM