Transportation mode recognition fusing wearable motion, sound and vision sensors

We present the first work that investigates the potential of improving the performance of transportation mode recognition through fusing multimodal data from wearable sensors: motion, sound and vision. We first train three independent deep neural network (DNN) classifiers, which work with the three types of sensors, respectively. We then propose two schemes that fuse the classification results from the three mono-modal classifiers. The first scheme makes an ensemble decision with fixed rules including Sum, Product, Majority Voting, and Borda Count. The second scheme is an adaptive fuser built as another classifier (including Naive Bayes, Decision Tree, Random Forest and Neural Network) that learns enhanced predictions by combining the outputs from the three mono-modal classifiers. We verify the advantage of the proposed method with the state-of-the-art Sussex-Huawei Locomotion and Transportation (SHL) dataset recognizing the eight transportation activities: Still, Walk, Run, Bike, Bus, Car, Train and Subway. We achieve F1 scores of 79.4%, 82.1% and 72.8% with the mono-modal motion, sound and vision classifiers, respectively. The F1 score is remarkably improved to 94.5% and 95.5% by the two data fusion schemes, respectively. The recognition performance can be further improved with a post-processing scheme that exploits the temporal continuity of transportation. When assessing generalization of the model to unseen data, we show that while performance is reduced - as expected - for each individual classifier, the benefits of fusion are retained with performance improved by 15 percentage points. Besides the actual performance increase, this work, most importantly, opens up the possibility for dynamically fusing modalities to achieve distinct power-performance trade-off at run time

Analysis of public transportation in seven European cities: learnings for improving the transit network of Barcelona

This research will compare the public transportation network and services of seven European cities (Barcelona, Berlin, Hamburg, London, Madrid, Munich, and Paris) at a mesoscopic level; special attention will be paid to Madrid. The analysis and learnings from all the cities will allow proposing improvements for Barcelona

Solving Commuting Challenges with RTS Bus Rapid Transit (RTS-BRT) Rochester, NY

The public transport service in Rochester, NY, is inefficient in terms of reliability, safety, comfort, security, waiting, transfer, and longer commute hours. The public transportation system needs significant transformation to overcome this alleviating issue and relieve the burden on low-income residents, pedestrians, and non-motorized vehicle users. The research objective of this thesis is to advance and discover a connection pattern between transportation, urban sprawl, poverty, and unemployment in Rochester, NY. It targets the low-income resident’s detachment from diverse uses, residential settlement, locations of jobs, and transportation options. The research analyses how-: people commute to work, how long the commute takes, the rate of car ownership, and the financial burdens of owning a car. Furthermore, the research goes deeper into the energy demands and emission reduction caused by the transport sector. The data collection method used for the analysis is metanalysis, gathering data from local authority websites, organizations, research papers, and media. Sustainable transport can be a catalyst for urban development that prioritizes equity, accessibility, and time savings for the low-income commuter while reducing emissions and increasing traffic safety. Thus, all benefactors are a modal shift to lower-carbon transport systems such as walking, cycling, public transport, alternative fuel vehicles, modifying roads, and minimizing travel time. The scope of this study is to assess the environmental, social, and economic impacts caused by car dependency in Rochester, NY. As a result, the research probes the opportunities and challenges of leveraging Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) while introducing a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system

Designing and Operating Safe and Secure Transit Systems: Assessing Current Practices in the United States and Abroad, MTI Report 04-05

Public transit systems around the world have for decades served as a principal venue for terrorist acts. Today, transit security is widely viewed as an important public policy issue and is a high priority at most large transit systems and at smaller systems operating in large metropolitan areas. Research on transit security in the United States has mushroomed since 9/11; this study is part of that new wave of research. This study contributes to our understanding of transit security by (1) reviewing and synthesizing nearly all previously published research on transit terrorism; (2) conducting detailed case studies of transit systems in London, Madrid, New York, Paris, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C.; (3) interviewing federal officials here in the United States responsible for overseeing transit security and transit industry representatives both here and abroad to learn about efforts to coordinate and finance transit security planning; and (4) surveying 113 of the largest transit operators in the United States. Our major findings include: (1) the threat of transit terrorism is probably not universal—most major attacks in the developed world have been on the largest systems in the largest cities; (2) this asymmetry of risk does not square with fiscal politics that seek to spread security funding among many jurisdictions; (3) transit managers are struggling to balance the costs and (uncertain) benefits of increased security against the costs and (certain) benefits of attracting passengers; (4) coordination and cooperation between security and transit agencies is improving, but far from complete; (5) enlisting passengers in surveillance has benefits, but fearful passengers may stop using public transit; (6) the role of crime prevention through environmental design in security planning is waxing; and (7) given the uncertain effectiveness of antitransit terrorism efforts, the most tangible benefits of increased attention to and spending on transit security may be a reduction in transit-related person and property crimes

Advances in Public Transport Platform for the Development of Sustainability Cities

Modern societies demand high and varied mobility, which in turn requires a complex transport system adapted to social needs that guarantees the movement of people and goods in an economically efficient and safe way, but all are subject to a new environmental rationality and the new logic of the paradigm of sustainability. From this perspective, an efficient and flexible transport system that provides intelligent and sustainable mobility patterns is essential to our economy and our quality of life. The current transport system poses growing and significant challenges for the environment, human health, and sustainability, while current mobility schemes have focused much more on the private vehicle that has conditioned both the lifestyles of citizens and cities, as well as urban and territorial sustainability. Transport has a very considerable weight in the framework of sustainable development due to environmental pressures, associated social and economic effects, and interrelations with other sectors. The continuous growth that this sector has experienced over the last few years and its foreseeable increase, even considering the change in trends due to the current situation of generalized crisis, make the challenge of sustainable transport a strategic priority at local, national, European, and global levels. This Special Issue will pay attention to all those research approaches focused on the relationship between evolution in the area of transport with a high incidence in the environment from the perspective of efficiency

Do public choice and public transport mix? An Australian-Canadian comparison

This paper explores the causes of, and evaluates possible remedies for, the decline of public transport in Melbourne. Travel patterns in urban areas are characterised by diversity: origins and destinations are dispersed and travel occurs throughout the day. Traditional forms of public transport, oriented to peak period, central city commuters, have had difficulty coping with this diversity. The currently popular response to this problem in Australia is based on the 'economic rationalists' remedies of privatisation and deregulation. But other cities have responded with the opposite policies, planning and coordination of services. This exploration of the two approaches is carried out through a comparison of public transport policy in Melbourne, where patronage has declined at world-beating rates in the last four decades, with Toronto, which has been much more successful. The reason for the contrasting patronage performances is found to lie in the different policies pursued in the two cities. These differences date from decisions taken in both cities in response to crises in public transport policy following the first world war and again in the 1950s. In Toronto, services have been planned and integrated by a public monopoly; policy in Melbourne has been market-driven, and based around competition and extensive private sector involvement. Toronto's centrally planned system has proven the more flexible in car ownership. While public transport operators in Melbourne have competed with one another, Toronto's single operator has competed with the car

Public Transport Route Finding using a Hybrid Genetic Algorithm

In this paper we present a public transport route finding solution based on a hybrid genetic algorithm. The algorithm uses two heuristics that take into consideration the number of trans-fers and the remaining distance to the destination station in order to improve the convergence speed. The interface of the system uses the latest web technologies to offer both portability and advanced functionality. The approach has been evaluated using the data for the Bucharest public transport network.Route Finding, Evolutionary Algorithms, Hybrid Genetic Algorithm