Leveraging data from a smart card automatic fare collection system for public transit planning

RÉSUMÉ Le système de transport en commun est une créature artificielle et complexe. L’interaction spatio-temporelle entre l’offre de service par les opérateurs et la demande des usagers est difficile à mesurer et évolue constamment. C’est dans ce contexte que de nombreux efforts sont mis à la recherche de l’information et de la méthodologie qui peuvent contribuer à révéler et à comprendre cette relation dynamique afin que les services répondent aux besoins des voyageurs. Récemment, des changements aux paradigmes remodèlent ce processus. D’une part, les opérateurs de transport en commun adoptent une orientation axée sur la performance et le client. Ceci demande des données qui ne sont pas recueillies par des enquêtes traditionnelles. D’autre part, l’avancement des systèmes automatiques de collecte de données et leur adoption par les opérateurs génèrent une abondance de données dans un environnement où la collecte de données était auparavant limitée. Les systèmes d’analyse et de planification sont souvent adaptés à ces réalités et sont inadéquats pour exploiter de nouvelles sources de données. Au confluent de ces évolutions, se retrouvent un défi et une opportunité : apprivoiser les nouvelles technologies informationnelles dans le but de les réconcilier avec les besoins grandissants de données dans le domaine de transport en commun. Cette recherche se fonde sur un jeu de données de validation provenant d’un système de perception par carte à puce (CAP). Le but de la recherche est de développer de nouvelles méthodologies d’exploitation des données, notamment au niveau de leur traitement, de leur enrichissement et de leur analyse afin de mieux connaître la demande de transport en commun, d’améliorer la planification opérationnelle, de raffiner la gestion du système et de comprendre les comportements de déplacement. Le jeu de données principal provient du système de perception par CAP de la Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO). Le système est muni de GPS et le jeu contient toutes les validations désagrégées pour le mois de février 2005. Les technologies informationnelles, incluant la base de données relationnelle, le système d’information géographique (SIG), les statistiques spatiales, le data mining et les visualisations, sont des principaux outils de traitement et d’analyse.----------ABSTRACT Public transit system is an artificial and complex creature. The interaction between operators’ supply and users’ demand is at the same time spatial and temporal. It is also difficult to measure and in constant evolution. There is a continuous quest for information and methodology that can help reveal and facilitate the understanding of this dynamic relationship, so that public transit services can be better organized to suit travelers’ needs. Recent paradigm shifts have contributed the reshaping of this process. On the one hand, public transit service has become more performance-driven and customer-oriented. These require data not covered by traditional survey methods. On the other hand, advances in passive data collection methods and their adoption by transit operators progressively transform the industry from data-poor to data-rich. Traditional analysis and planning tools are adapted to past conditions and are not suited to fully leverage new sources of data. At the confluence of these evolutions lies opportunity and challenge: to embrace the data-rich environment with the view of reconciling with the increasingly demanding data needs in public transit. The research is based on a set of validations data from a smart card automatic fare collection (AFC) system. The goal of the research is to develop new methods in data processing, data enrichment and data analysis in order to better quantify transit demand, enhance operations planning, improve system management and understand travel behaviour. The primary dataset comes from the smart card AFC of the Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO). The system is equipped with GPS and the dataset contains all fare validations in a disaggregate form for the month of February 2005. Information technologies, including relational database, geographic information system (GIS), spatial statistics, data mining and visualization are the main data processing and analysis tools. Three overall principles guide the research: the information-based (data-driven) approach, the totally disaggregated approach and the object-oriented approach. Combined with multi-day smart card data, these principles lead to the multi-day information approach, a new concept used in the proposed data processing and enrichment procedures. The assumption is that each day of data represent partial information of the universe and may contain errors. By synthesizing the correct information from each day, it is possible to reconstruct complete knowledge. The latter is in turn used as a reference to analyze and interpret multi-day data

Self-Determination in Transportation: The Route to Social Inclusion for People with Disabilities

People with disabilities encounter many challenges with transportation but are not usually considered in research about travel behavior and well-being. Research on transportation challenges is often disability-specific even though different access needs can complement or conflict with each other. I argue that disability should be centered in the study of travel and well-being because it magnifies problems that may also frustrate people who do not currently consider themselves disabled. The goal of the dissertation was to identify how basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence apply to the context of transportation and identify ways to measure fulfillment and frustration of those needs. Mixed methods including surveys and travel diaries were used to measure basic psychological needs in transportation and explore the relationships between psychological needs, flourishing, and moods associated with daily travel. Two surveys were conducted among a broad sample of people living in the New York metropolitan area to develop measures of psychological needs in transportation and explore which types of disabilities are associated with transportation difficulties and unfulfilled needs. A novel digital travel diary method using free software applications was also developed to collect GPS location history and daily surveys about best and worst trips, impediments, and moods, which were compared to survey measures. There was a positive relationship between the fulfillment of basic psychological needs in transportation and well-being. Participants with disabilities had greater difficulty with factors in transportation that thwart basic psychological needs than participants without disabilities. Self-reported difficulty with transportation was correlated with lower well-being. The travel diaries showed that there were no group differences between disabled and nondisabled participants in the average number of obstacles experienced, and nondisabled participants reported more delays on average than disabled participants. However, experiencing obstacles and delays had a greater negative influence on mood and well-being for disabled participants, which may be a result of previous difficult experiences with transportation. Transit agencies and policymakers should consider basic psychological needs fulfillment, including improving accessibility, encouraging disability awareness and etiquette, and ensuring information access, to encourage better transportation experiences for disabled and nondisabled passengers alike

The D.C. Freeway Revolt and the Coming of Metro

Monograph on the revolt that lead to the creation of the D.C. Metro