Validating and improving public transport origin–destination estimation algorithm using smart card fare data

Smart card data are increasingly used for transit network planning, passengers’ behaviour analysis and network demand forecasting. Public transport origin–destination (O–D) estimation is a significant product of processing smart card data. In recent years, various O–D estimation methods using the trip-chaining approach have attracted much attention from both researchers and practitioners. However, the validity of these estimation methods has not been extensively investigated. This is mainly because these datasets usually lack data about passengers’ alighting, as passengers are often required to tap their smart cards only when boarding a public transport service. Thus, this paper has two main objectives. First, the paper reports on the implementation and validation of the existing O–D estimation method using the unique smart card dataset of the South-East Queensland public transport network which includes data on both boarding stops and alighting stops. Second, the paper improves the O–D estimation algorithm and empirically examines these improvements, relying on this unique dataset. The evaluation of the last destination assumption of the trip-chaining method shows a significant negative impact on the matching results of the differences between actual boarding/alighting times and the public transport schedules. The proposed changes to the algorithm improve the average distance between the actual and estimated alighting stops, as this distance is reduced from 806 m using the original algorithm to 530 m after applying the suggested improvements.     

Multi-step prediction of experienced travel times using agent-based modeling

This paper develops an agent-based modeling approach to predict multi-step ahead experienced travel times using real-time and historical spatiotemporal traffic data. At the microscopic level, each agent represents an expert in a decision-making system. Each expert predicts the travel time for each time interval according to experiences from a historical dataset. A set of agent interactions is developed to preserve agents that correspond to traffic patterns similar to the real-time measurements and replace invalid agents or agents associated with negligible weights with new agents. Consequently, the aggregation of each agent’s recommendation (predicted travel time with associated weight) provides a macroscopic level of output, namely the predicted travel time distribution. Probe vehicle data from a 95-mile freeway stretch along I-64 and I-264 are used to test different predictors. The results show that the agent-based modeling approach produces the least prediction error compared to other state-of-the-practice and state-of-the-art methods (instantaneous travel time, historical average and k-nearest neighbor), and maintains less than a 9% prediction error for trip departures up to 60 min into the future for a two-hour trip. Moreover, the confidence boundaries of the predicted travel times demonstrate that the proposed approach also provides high accuracy in predicting travel time confidence intervals. Finally, the proposed approach does not require offline training thus making it easily transferable to other locations and the fast algorithm computation allows the proposed approach to be implemented in real-time applications in Traffic Management Centers.     

Short-term speed predictions exploiting big data on large urban road networks

Big data from floating cars supply a frequent, ubiquitous sampling of traffic conditions on the road network and provide great opportunities for enhanced short-term traffic predictions based on real-time information on the whole network. Two network-based machine learning models, a Bayesian network and a neural network, are formulated with a double star framework that reflects time and space correlation among traffic variables and because of its modular structure is suitable for an automatic implementation on large road networks. Among different mono-dimensional time-series models, a seasonal autoregressive moving average model (SARMA) is selected for comparison. The time-series model is also used in a hybrid modeling framework to provide the Bayesian network with an a priori estimation of the predicted speed, which is then corrected exploiting the information collected on other links. A large floating car data set on a sub-area of the road network of Rome is used for validation. To account for the variable accuracy of the speed estimated from floating car data, a new error indicator is introduced that relates accuracy of prediction to accuracy of measure. Validation results highlighted that the spatial architecture of the Bayesian network is advantageous in standard conditions, where a priori knowledge is more significant, while mono-dimensional time series revealed to be more valuable in the few cases of non-recurrent congestion conditions observed in the data set. The results obtained suggested introducing a supervisor framework that selects the most suitable prediction depending on the detected traffic regimes.     

Commuter ride-sharing using topology-based vehicle trajectory clustering: Methodology,application and impact evaluation

This paper illustrates a ride matching method for commuting trips based on clustering trajectories, and a modeling and simulation framework with ride-sharing behaviors to illustrate its potential impact. It proposes data mining solutions to reduce traffic demand and encourage more environment-friendly behaviors. The main contribution is a new data-driven ride-matching method, which tracks personal preferences of road choices and travel patterns to identify potential ride-sharing routes for carpool commuters. Compared with prevalent carpooling algorithms, which allow users to enter departure and destination information for on-demand trips, the proposed method focuses more on regular commuting trips. The potential effectiveness of the approach is evaluated using a traffic simulation-assignment framework with ride-sharing participation using the routes suggested by our algorithm. Two types of ride-sharing participation scenarios, with and without carpooling information, are considered. A case study with the Chicago tested is conducted to demonstrate the proposed framework’s ability to support better decision-making for carpool commuters. The results indicate that with ride-matching recommendations using shared vehicle trajectory data, carpool programs for commuters contribute to a less congested traffic state and environment-friendly travel patterns.     

Airport capacity increase via the use of braking profiles

Many airports are encountering the problem of insufficient capacity, which is particularly severe in periods of increased traffic. A large number of elements influence airport capacity, but one of the most important is runway occupancy time. This time depends on many factors, including how the landing roll procedure is performed. The procedure usually does not include the objective to minimize the runway occupancy time. This paper presents an analysis which shows that the way of braking during landing roll has an essential impact on runway throughput and thus on airport capacity. For this purpose, the landing roll simulator (named ACPENSIM) was created. It uses Petri nets and is a convenient tool for dynamic analysis of aircraft movement on the runway with given input parameters and a predetermined runway exit. Simulation experiments allowed to create a set of nominal braking profiles that have different objective functions: minimizing the runway occupancy time, minimizing noise, minimizing tire wear, maximizing passenger comfort and maximizing airport capacity as a whole. The experiments show that there is great potential to increase airport capacity by optimizing the braking procedure. It has been shown that by using the proposed braking profiles it is possible to reduce the runway occupancy time even by 50%.     

Travel time estimation from sparse floating car data with consistent path inference: A fixed point approach

Estimation of urban network link travel times from sparse floating car data (FCD) usually needs pre-processing, mainly map-matching and path inference for finding the most likely vehicle paths that are consistent with reported locations. Path inference requires a priori assumptions about link travel times; using unrealistic initial link travel times can bias the travel time estimation and subsequent identification of shortest paths. Thus, the combination of path inference and travel time estimation is a joint problem. This paper investigates the sensitivity of estimated travel times, and proposes a fixed point formulation of the simultaneous path inference and travel time estimation problem. The methodology is applied in a case study to estimate travel times from taxi FCD in Stockholm, Sweden. The results show that standard fixed point iterations converge quickly to a solution where input and output travel times are consistent. The solution is robust under different initial travel times assumptions and data sizes. Validation against actual path travel time measurements from the Google API and an instrumented vehicle deployed for this purpose shows that the fixed point algorithm improves shortest path finding. The results highlight the importance of the joint solution of the path inference and travel time estimation problem, in particular for accurate path finding and route optimization.     

基于改进极限学习机的公交站点 短时客流预测方法

以公交车IC 卡和GPS数据为基础，提出了一种基于改进粒子群算法优化极限学习机(IPSO-ELM)的公交站点短时客流预测模型.依托IC 卡和GPS 数据在站点的特征表现和内在联系，定义了站点间距，并分析了站间距和车辆到总站距离间的联系；提出了公交乘客上车站点确定方法，进而得到公交站点上车客流量；通过分析公交客流数据特征，确定ELM输入参数维度，并采用IPSO 算法找到ELM的最优隐含层节点参数；最后依托广州市19 路公交车客流数据仓库进行了方法验证.结果表明：所用优化后的ELM方法预测误差在10%以内，并与应用广泛的SVM、ARIMA和传统ELM模型进行对比分析，发现改进的ELM方法拥有更高的可靠性和泛化性能.     

基于多源数据的公交车能耗碳排放测算模型

公交车能耗碳排放强度与车辆、线路和驾驶员有显著相关关系，为精准刻画其能耗碳排放强度特征，整合OBD监测数据、加油(气)数据、运营排班数据等多源数据资源. OBD监测数据和加油(气)数据呈显著的线性关系，证明修正后的OBD监测数据可满足分析要求. 搭建“速度-能耗碳排放强度曲线”测算模型，幂函数关系的拟合优度R2 =0.972 6 为最高. 实证研究发现，平均速度在10~60 km/h 变化时，液化天然气(LNG)车比柴油车能耗碳排放强度高 3.3%~33.7%，双层车比铰接车高2.4%~13.3%；LNG铰接车在不同线路、相同速度下的强度相差9.6%；不同驾驶员在相同线路的能耗碳排放强度可相差24.2%. 模型为各城市基于多源数据开展公交能耗碳排放目标设定提供数据支撑.     

基于行程时间影响的关键路段识别与查找

从路段实际功能出发，提出基于路段与路径行程时间序列的相关性识别关键路段的方法.借鉴蒙特卡洛思想，以真实数据构造10万条随机路径验证该方法的可行性，并识别出对上海市路网行程时间有关键影响的路段集合.以上述集合为参照，利用模糊聚类及迭代累计平方和算法提取路段行程时间序列特征并构造两个新变量，结合基础属性建立二项Logit模型，从而主动查找关键路段.比较该模型与基础模型、随机分类器查找效果表明：基于最大归一化行程时间曲线聚类，其结果对关键路段识别模型的性能有提升效用；行程时间对数差分序列的结构性变点在路网和路段级别均有明显时间聚集特性，虽然其个数与路段关键性无明显关系，但其与常见波动程度指标相关性小，可保留用于描述行程时间波动常发性和聚集性.     

加强航海人员VTS意识的必要性

文中首先阐述了VTS的重要性,为进一步发挥VTS作用,提出了加强航海人员VTS意识的必要性,并结合案例进一步论证航海人员VTS意识的重要性,最后结合国际公约及国家的相关规则,对现有航海人员的培训提出细化及增添的建议,提出了通过岸基管理、航海人员的培训及港口国监督等方法来提升航海人员的VTS意识。