Flexible Express Bus Line Planning and Operating Based on Passenger Flow Analysis

Bus service is an important public transportation. Besides the major goal of carrying passengers around, providing a comfortable travel experience for passengers is also an important business consideration. Traditional fixed bus line planning and vehicle scheduling are difficult to meet the needs of the public due to the real-time changes in passenger flow. Opening new flexible bus lines during special periods becomes an effective measure to ease the pressure. The traditional method for designing new bus lines mainly rely on human experience and field investigations, which are both non-scalable and incomplete. The emerging Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data technologies have provided us with new opportunities. In this paper, we use smart card fare collection systems' data and GPS tracing systems' data to predict the passenger flow and find potential flexible lines. At the same time, we actually operated the flexible lines and conducted a field verification of its effectiveness.

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