Estimating a Transit Passenger Trip Origin-Destination Matrix Using Automatic Fare Collection System

Automatic fare collection system (AFC) has been widely used for public transport all over the world. However, in China, the most important information, the Origin-Destination (OD) matrix of each bus route, cannot be directly obtained from AFC since alighting information is not recorded at each bus stop. This paper presents an OD estimation model, which applies trajectory search algorithms to track passengers' daily trip trajectory using pre-processed smart card data from all the passengers in one city of China. The results of a rigorous validation with on/off data from a real bus route reveal that the proposed model is quite effective and reliable in estimating the OD matrix for identification of the underlying demand pattern of a transit route. The algorithm is validated using oneday smart card data in Jinan city. The results have shown that the OD estimation from the proposed algorithm match more than 75% with the actual ODpairs. During the peak hours, the matching rate goes up to 85%. Hence, the proposed algorithm significantly improves the utilization of the smart card data. It is valuable to evaluate route network and optimize bus scheduling basing on estimated passenger trip OD matrix.