Knotted-line: A Visual explorer for uncertainty in transportation system

Abstract

Abstract Public transport system(PTS) is a complex system, and there are various uncertainties caused by traffic congestion, varying departure interval of buses, etc. In this paper, taking bus as an example, a novel visualization model knotted-line for transportation system uncertainties is proposed. The knotted-line visualization model consists of three parts, the violin plot, multi-layer ring and risk indicator. The violin plot shows the uncertainty of passengers’ waiting time. The multi-layer ring describes the uncertainty of bus arrival time. The risk indicator expresses the possibility of passenger spending time on the trip. A user study is conducted to evaluate the proposed visualization method. The results show that the proposed knotted-line visualization model is helpful for passengers to understand the uncertainty in transportation system and help users to make decisions.