Automatic recognition of “low-quality” vehicles and bus stops in bus services
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
2018
Subject Area
place - europe, mode - bus, technology - passenger information, operations - performance, planning - service quality, planning - service level, infrastructure - stop, infrastructure - vehicle
Keywords
Transit service quality monitoring, Low-quality in bus stops, Low-quality in vehicles, Automatic detection, Secret Shopper
Abstract
A recent interest in transit service analysis resulted in advances in the monitoring of public transport quality from the passenger’s viewpoint. Several frameworks were proposed to show where and when different quality levels occur, but there has been no focus on determining which vehicles and bus stops lead to low-quality performance in bus services. This paper proposes a framework that: (i) performs a simple data collection on selected parameters on passenger activities at bus stops (e.g., consulting posted information) and in-vehicle (e.g., validating the ticket). This data collection is performed by Secret Shoppers on Origin-Destination pairs representing paths travelled by passengers, (ii) proposes two new algorithms detecting criticalities for each route and parameter, and (iii) shows the vehicles and bus stops for which some targets are not met. These steps result in the first framework that can help build operational plans guiding the correction of criticalities arising in the delivered bus services. This framework is deeply investigated and discussed in a real-life Italian case.
Rights
Permission to publish the abstract has been given by SpringerLink, copyright remains with them.
Recommended Citation
Barabino, B. (2018). Automatic recognition of “low-quality” vehicles and bus stops in bus services. Public Transport, Vol. 10, pp. 257-289.
