System Proposal for Mass Transit Service Quality Control Based on GPS Data

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 17; no. 6; p. 1412
• Main Authors: Padrón, Gabino, Cristóbal, Teresa, Alayón, Francisco, Quesada-Arencibia, Alexis, García, Carmelo R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 16-06-2017; MDPI
• Subjects: Airborne/spaceborne computers; Communications systems; Data acquisition; Mobile communication systems; Public transportation; Quality assessment; Quality control; Regularity; Transportation networks; Wireless communications; Wireless networks; automatic vehicle location; public transport systems; intelligent transport systems; operation control
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s17061412

Quality is an essential aspect of public transport. In the case of regular public passenger transport by road, punctuality and regularity are criteria used to assess quality of service. Calculating metrics related to these criteria continuously over time and comprehensively across the entire transport network requires the handling of large amounts of data. This article describes a system for continuously and comprehensively monitoring punctuality and regularity. The system uses location data acquired continuously in the vehicles and automatically transferred for analysis. These data are processed intelligently by elements that are commonly used by transport operators: GPS-based tracking system, onboard computer and wireless networks for mobile data communications. The system was tested on a transport company, for which we measured the punctuality of one of the routes that it operates; the results are presented in this article.