GPS Data Analytics for the Assessment of Public City Bus Transportation Service Quality in Bangkok

Abstract

Evaluation of the quality of service (QoS) of public city buses is generally performed using surveys that assess attributes such as accessibility, availability, comfort, convenience, reliabilities, safety, security, etc. Each survey attribute is assessed from the subjective viewpoint of the service users. This is reliable and straightforward because the consumer is the one who accesses the bus service. However, in addition to summarizing personal feedback from humans, using data analytics has become another useful method for assessing the QoS of bus transportation. This work aims to use global positioning system (GPS) data to measure the reliability, accessibility, and availability of bus transportation services. There are three QoS scoring functions for tracking complete trips, on-path driving, and on-schedule operation. In the analytical process, GPS coordinates rounding is adopted and applied for detecting trips on each route path. After assessing the three QoS scores, it has been found that most bus routes have good operations with high scores, while some bus routes show room for improvement. Future work could use our data to create recommendations for policy makers in terms of how to improve a city’s smart mobility.