The analysis of bus commuters’ travel characteristics using smart card data: the case of Shenzhen, China

Smart card automatic fare collection (AFC) has increasingly become popular as they provide an efficient fare management. In most cities of China, the transit systems have separate AVL (automatic vehicle location) and AFC systems, not being connected with each other. This paper aims to analyze some characteristics of bus commuters based on the smart card data obtained in Shenzhen, China. Hence, the authors have to determine the boarding locations. They matched the transaction information with GPS (global positioning system) data to predict the bus stops. And then bus commuters are defined to meet some rules.13,626 O-D (origin and destination) pairs among bus commuters were found for analysis of the characteristics. Most of bus commuters' origins on weekdays focused on the residential zone, and destinations are in the city center in the morning. On weekends, there are more non-work-based activities. The three hours 7-9 a.m. 6-7 p.m. are the peak hours of public transportation. 78.14% of commuters take the same bus lines in morning and afternoon which indicated that bus lines offered to passengers are relatively few. The trip chain of the majority of bus commuters is "Bus-Bus" in a day. The transfers between bus and bus or metro are not many, and most of the transfer time is within 30 minutes which indicated a short travel time among commuters. The future work can concentrate on the accuracy improvement, the verification of result and research on the group of cardholders for more detailed analysis.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP050 Bus Transit Systems. Alternate title: Analysis of Bus Commuters' Travel Characteristics Using Smart Card Data: Case of Shenzhen, China
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Shi, Xinyi
  • Hangfei, Lin
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC
  • Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
• Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 9p
• Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automatic fare collection; Automatic vehicle location; Bus stops; Bus transit; Commuters; Data collection; Global Positioning System; Smart cards
• Geographic Terms: Shenzhen (China)
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01520000
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-2571
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 26 2014 10:13AM