Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Passenger Travel Modes: A Study Based on Shanghai Smart Card Data

Abstract

In recent years, people have realized the importance of Smart Card Data (Pelletiera in Transp Res Part C 10, 2011). Smart card data use in public transit: A literature review. Transportation Research Part C, 10.) (SCD). Additionally, the government has increasingly strengthened the demand for decision-making in the public transportation industry, the management of enterprise, business expansion and public transportation. SCD can meet the needs of governments, transportation departments, public transportation enterprises, businessmen and citizens. SCD application research will become the key development trend and hot spot in the field of traffic big data. With the rapid development of China’s urban rail transit network, passengers’ travel choices (Sun and Xu in Transp Res Rec J Transp Res Board 2275(1):58–67, 2012). Rail transit travel time reliability and estimation of passenger route choice behavior: Analysis using automatic fare collection data. Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2275(1), 58–67.) are more diversified and the distribution characteristics of travel are more complex. SCD provides origin–destination (OD) records of each passenger’s information at a relatively low cost to acquire the data. SCD and corresponding data mining technology make it possible to research passengers’ travel characteristics from smart card data. The aim of this paper is to find out the passengers’ travel characteristics by SCD and lay a foundation for further understanding the rules of passengers’ travel. This study utilized the panel data of SCD at a specific time span and analyzed three aspects of temporal and spatial travelling characteristics of urban residents, which are total passenger traveling, alignment and stops. We obtained the general passenger travel characteristics, passenger distribution on key subway lines and nodes of rail transit network to help provide specific visual support for public transportation administration departments and operational management companies.