Smart card data and planning for public transport

Public transport smart card data are widely used to measure passengers’ travel patterns, such as intermodal transfer behaviour, boarding time preferences and passengers’ waiting time. This chapter provides a case study from South East Queensland (SEQ), Australia, a 200-km linear city of rapidly growing urban areas including Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast. The Go-card system, the public transport system in SEQ, is a region-wide and zone-based system in which passengers use one card for all public transport modes, including rail, bus, ferry and tram. To investigate the impact of public transport service supply, this chapter evaluates passengers’ waiting time patterns by comparing passengers’ arrival patterns at heavy rail stations from Go-card data and heavy rail service headways from the timetable. This chapter concludes with policy implications and future research suggestions.