Urban infrastructure plays a major role in the efficiency and effective use of networks and pathways that urban occupants use daily.
To keep up with the spatial needs of this infrastructure, professionals often turn to Geospatial technologies to solve the challenges revolving around urban mobility and testing efficiencies of the existing transport systems.
A transport system not only looks into the transit or bus system in the city but also evaluates multiple parameters like the growth of the city, emerging industries or employment centers, land use within and around the city, transit-oriented development, road infrastructure, and much more. This makes the process of infrastructure management for a transit system a highly complex arrangement within the context of urban areas.
However, the Geographic Information System (GIS) provides a strategic advantage when it comes to the analysis and integration of transit as an essential service for the public. Unlike other technologies, geospatial techniques not only give information about what the problem is but also point to the location of the issues. The location information is very crucial for the decision makers as it helps with a more focused approach to problem-solving.
The geographic locations of amenities and facilities are necessary to a city’s overall functionality and GIS can provide plentiful resources for decision makers to create healthy and sustainable cities. To perceive improved urban capabilities in transit and transportation, city authorities must work with digital technologies and start managing data spatially.
Managing data geospatially enhances the scope of public transportation asset management. The application of GIS has relevance to urban transportation due to the spatially distributed nature of transportation-related data (like road network, transit network, stop locations, major activity centers in the city, etc.) and the need for various types of network level analysis, statistical analysis and spatial analysis and visualization.
It helps to analyze the extent of problems, understand the geographic impact of the decisions taken, and ultimately make more informed decisions. Using Geospatial technology one can also study demographic as well as socio-economic variables and their impact on the public transport system.
The geospatial data can be integrated with Big Data that includes operational information like Bus Schedules, ETM data, AVLS data to derive how the existing transit system in the city operates.
The answers to following questions can be evaluated to check the competence of the system and can be derived using geospatial tools.
1. How accessible is the transit system to citizens?
2. Where are the major trip generating areas? Which land use attracts more demand?
3. Where are the major traffic hotspots and congested networks which may impact PT speeds?
4. What are the limitations or gaps of the existing public transport infrastructure and areas of improvement?
A GIS-based transportation system aids to generate and evaluate alternative as well as feasible solutions to the problems of urban mobility faced in cities. It also optimizes on-demand and scheduled mobility operations to enable seamless intermodal journeys.
Transit agencies are presently working with these geospatial technologies to improve efficient and sustainable public transport operations.
As a result, agencies develop mechanisms such as the recording of quantitative and spatial data for monitoring and enhancing the measures based on the implementation experiences. Geospatial data is also used as input in Transport Modelling software which enhances its significance in the field of urban mobility.
The results and derived information can be integrated further with software like PowerBi to create interactive and real-time dashboards and reports to monitor the operational performance of transit systems. It helps to take decisions regarding route modifications and service augmentation based on transport planning and scheduling mechanisms.
Many cities in India have started acknowledging the power of spatial data and recognising that data plays a key role in the future and technological innovation is necessary to ensure passenger preferences are considered in transit service delivery.
With that thought, cities and State Undertaking Units (STU) have started to launch control rooms for fast decision-making in traffic management. Some of the agencies are Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT) Bhubaneswar, Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) in Ahmedabad, Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation, Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Ltd. (PMPML), to name a few.
Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT) Bhubaneswar has introduced gender disaggregate data collection as part of their ticketing through (ETMs). This data records the information on boarding, alighting, fare stage, fare paid along with date and time are captured separately for females.
This information is transferred to the servers by the end of the day stored and downloaded from the Automatic Fare Collection System (AFCS) and used for analyzing female trip patters, ridership, route-wise distribution, boarding & alighting stops etc. This information is important in gender-sensitive transit planning, infrastructure improvements in terms of lighting at stops etc. to make female journeys safer.
In addition, CRUT has also developed an online tool that helps in improving performance and service planning along with key performance indicators (KPIs).
KSRTC in Kerala has also adopted an E – Tram tool (based on geospatial and operations data) for its operational planning and scheduling. Key components of the tool are evaluating route performance, its daily, weekly, and monthly trends as well as assessing passenger usage patterns and preferences in terms of daily boarding, alighting, peak and off-peak hours including origin-destination analysis.
They can also monitor staff performance in terms of driver and conductor evaluation. In addition, similar to CRUT it has also introduced gender-based ticketing to make its services gender sensitive.
AJL has a State of Art control room for BRTS in Ahmedabad. It serves as a data management centre for service planning and real-time operations monitoring. Reports can be generated daily that include overall ridership, revenue, speed of buses, peak demand, bus breakdowns, and other technical information.
GPS devices are installed in the buses which allows the operators to track the bus operations on the ground and track whether buses are following their schedules. Control room operators can monitor the stations and buses with cameras to look for suspicious people/objects and can take necessary steps to ensure safety. Data from ETM and AVLS are used to make bus routing and scheduling decisions.
There is a similar command and control room in Delhi to track and monitor DTC and Cluster Buses employing new technology like IP-based CCTV Surveillance Cameras and GPS already installed in the public transport systems. This helps the authority to monitor operations at all depots, stations, and buses and ensure safer services.
BMTC has also deployed a similar control room. This helps them track buses in real-time and share that information with the traffic department which will help them to manage traffic in case of bus breakdown and traffic jams.
They can make sure that buses are not taking deviations and skipping stops. Real-time bus tracking allows to get an idea of the actual trip time and helps them to plan the trips and schedules accordingly. This helps to implement better and more real services for the citizens.
PMPML has set up a Transport Command and Control Centre that captures the real-time movement of buses in the city based on the GPS tracker, which is installed on the buses. This enables PMPML to respond to incidents of over-speeding, harsh braking, skipping red lights, etc. It also has a vehicle monitoring system to improve fleet utilization.
Surat city link has gone one step forward by sharing the AVLS data as per General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) opening up opportunities for geospatial transit data to be used by app developers for delivering Mobility as a Service. A similar initiative is also being carried on by other agencies in Kolkata, Delhi, and Bengaluru.
If we see the above examples, the adoption of spatial data in transit operations majorly includes features such as real-time bus tracking, enforcing safety measures, and monitoring bus operations that can ensure a more efficient and reliable transit system in the city. It will increase citizen convenience and increase control and transparency in the system.
Disclaimer: Views Expressed are Author's Own. Geospatial World May or May Not Endorse it
