Edinburgh Napier University

  Passengers using the Lothian Buses network may use a smart card (Ridacard) to pay for their journey, swiping the card on boarding a vehicle. Smart card journeys account for about 1/3rd of journeys made. This generates data recording when an individual boards a bus, but no data is available to record journey duration of estimation. This project seeks to develop algorithmic techniques to reconstruct journeys based on smartcard and real time vehicle location (AVL) data. Each time a smart card is used the vehicle may be highlighted and the AVL data used to identify all of the potential exit points (location and time) for that passenger. By using algorithmic techniques such as profiling and clustering of passenger data the probability of exit at each potential point may be calculated. The project will provide insight into how the Lothian Buses network is utilised such as passenger loadings at specific points, journey durations and situations where complete journeys are made up from several bus trips.