Augmenting Transit Trip Characterization and Travel Behavior Comprehension: Multiday Location-Stamped Smart Card Transactions

Trips need to be described and have always been characterized by various levels of abstraction. It varies from a simple label such as home-based work to complete itinerary with sociodemographic characteristics of the trip maker and household. The rationale behind such classifications is that planners and modelers recognize that the demand of transportation is highly differentiated. It is hoped that additional attributes would provide a more complete portrait of the demand and an improved understanding of the underlying travel behavior. Passive data collection technologies bring an extra dimension to travel data acquisition. Multiday data, which are difficult to collect, become accessible. In public transit, a smart card automatic fare collection system with automatic vehicle location capability provides high-resolution longitudinal data on travel pattern but also suffers from the inherent limitations of passive methods. This paper proposes a methodology to enhance transit trip characterization by adding a multiday dimension to a month of smart card transactions. On the basis of an individual, anchor points—precise to an exact address—are detected. Boarding and alighting locations are described with respect to those anchors. The enhancement allows in-depth travel behavior analysis on a subgroup sharing a common anchor or an individual. The paper demonstrates the use of spatial statistics, spatial analyses with geographic information system, visualizations, and data mining to describe activity space and locations and departure time dynamics, and to derive monthly trip table, activity schedule, and behavioral rules for cardholders. The results offer promising insights to transit planning and the understanding of travel behavior.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.3141/2183-04
• Summary URL:
  http://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Augmenting+Transit+Trip+Characterization+and+Travel+Behavior+Comprehension%3a+Multiday+Location-Stamped+Smart+Card+Transactions&author=K.+Chu&author=R.+Chapleau&publication_year=2010
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/Information_Systems_Geographic_Information_Systems_164773.aspx
• Authors:
  • Chu, Ka Kee Alfred
  • Chapleau, Robert
• Publication Date: 2010

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 29-40
• Monograph Title: Information Systems, Geographic Information Systems, and Advanced Computing 2010
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
  • Issue Number: 2183
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Boarding and alighting; Data collection; Data mining; Geographic information systems; Public transit; Smart cards; Spatial analysis; Travel behavior; Travel demand; Travel surveys; Trip tables; Visualization
• Uncontrolled Terms: Activity schedules; Multi-day data; Spatial statistics
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01154963
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 9780309160544
• Report/Paper Numbers: 10-2212
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Apr 21 2010 8:09AM