Visualization of Bus Schedule Adherence Using GIS

Although public transportation has been using intelligent transportation infrastructure since the 1960s, recent advancements in technology and an increased agency focus to the Americans with Disability Act are benefiting the transit industry. Advanced Public Transportation System (APTS) includes Fleet Management Systems, Traveler Information Systems and Electronic Payment Systems. APTS utilizes advanced technologies ranging from Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL)/Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) System, Automated Passenger Counter (APC) to Automated Fare Collection (AFC), Automated Vehicle Component Monitoring (AVM), on-board and wayside security systems, multi-modal coordination, and Transit Traveler Information (TTI). The long-term goal of collecting AVL and APC data is to use these data to improve transit Level of Service (LOS). LOS includes service reliability measured by both on-time performance and regularity of headways. In this paper we present a computer visualization prototype, which maps static bus schedules and can be extended to integrate "real time" active APC/AVL data measure the on-time performance and headway adherence. This is accomplished using ArcObject in ArcGIS and VBA programming language. Using this visualization tool, the difference between active and static data of a trip, or between active data from two or more continuous trips, can be readily measured and compared on a dynamic map, which updales the active/schedule location of one or more buses given a specified frequency of a time frame (i.e., a snapshot in time). We demonstrate how the mapping is accomplished using the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus route schedules. Such a visualization tool is not only useful for transit planning and LOS measures but also beneficial to transit users if such a tool is made available online to the public. Travelers can gain real-time, accurate information about where the buses are and when they arrive at particular stops. Better utilization of APC/AVL data leads to better understanding of bus performance and thus results in better planning and operation management. The powerful functions of ArcGIS in visualizing spatial data and Oracle's database management capability will provides very strong IT support for transit data utilization. Lastly, future research directions with respect to full utilization of APC/AVL data are also identified in this paper.