Spatio-temporal Pattern Analysis of Big Data in Engineering Systems

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Data analytics to advance the inference of origin–destination in public transport systems: tracing network vulnerabilities and age-sensitive trip purposes

Publication . Cerqueira, Sofia; Arsenio, Elisabete; Barateiro, José; Henriques, Rui

Knowing the passengers' final destinations, underlying motifs, and commuting habits is critical to optimise public transportation systems, guide urban planning and contribute to a more sustainable urban mobility. In entry-only Automated Fare Collection systems, the body of literature has focused on the spatial dimension by estimating alighting stops, overlooking the inference of robust alighting times. Moreover, discriminating between transfers and activities is pivotal for determining their ultimate destinations. However, current methods often struggle to adapt to the stochastic nature of passenger behaviour, further disregarding the multiplicity of routes and stops to access specific facilities and individual motivations. Further research is required to address an effective spatio-temporal and contextual inference in both challenges. With the above concerns in mind, this research uses data analytics to propose an enhanced methodology for the inference of OD matrices, with the final goal of providing a comprehensive view of OD mobility patterns across distinct age-sensitive profiles-youth, adults, and older adults. Our methodological framework integrates the following approaches: (i) alighting stop-and-time inference, (ii) ensembled model for transfer classification, (iii) indicators retrieved from statistical analysis of network vulnerabilities (e.g., number of transfers, walkability needs), frequent destinations and their underlying putative motifs against the city amenities and others points-of-interest. The reliability of alighting data (timestamp and location) inference is improved by integrating OpenStreetMap data and the past boarding data from bus and railway systems. Considering Lisbon as the target study case, we apply the methodology over smart card data collected both from metro and bus systems. A comparative analysis with state-of-the-art methods revealed that the enhanced framework for alighting and OD inference led to longer journey times for trips. Furthermore, throughout the day, the older adult group experiences longer transfer times on average compared to both the children and young adult segment and the adult segment.

2025-05-22Journal article

Open access