Public transport buses have uncertainties associated with its arrival/travel times, due to several factors such as signals, dwell times at bus stops, seasonal variations, fluctuating travel demands, and so on. In the developing world, these uncertainties are further magnified by the presence of excess vehicles, diverse modes of transport, and acute lack of lane discipline. Hence, the problem of bus arrival time prediction continues to be a challenging one especially in developing countries. This paper proposes a new methodology for bus arrival time prediction in real time. Unlike existing approaches, the proposed method explicitly learns the spatial (and temporal) correlations/patterns of traffic in a novel fashion. Specifically, it first detects the unknown order of spatial dependence and then learns linear, non-stationary spatial correlations for this detected order. It learns temporal correlations between successive trips as a function of their time difference. To make the optimal prediction feasible, the learnt predictive model is rewritten in a suitable linear state-space form, and then, an appropriate Kalman filter (KF) is applied. The performance was evaluated with real field data and compared with existing methods.

Predicting bus arrival times and travel times are crucial elements to make the public transport more attractive and reliable. The present study explores the use of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) to make public transportation systems more attractive by providing timely and accurate travel time information of transit vehicles. However, for such systems to be successful, the prediction should be accurate, which ultimately depends on the prediction method as well as the input data used. In the present study, to identify significant inputs, a data mining technique, namely k-NN classifying algorithm is used. It is based on the similarity in pattern between the input and historic data. These identified inputs are then used for predicting the travel time using a model-based recursive estimation scheme, based on Kalman filtering. The performance is evaluated and compared with methods based on static inputs, to highlight the improved prediction accuracy.

Providing accurate information about bus arrival time to passengers can make the public transport system more attractive. Such information helps the passengers by reducing the uncertainty on waiting time and the associated frustrations. However, accurate estimation of bus travel time is still a challenging problem, especially under heterogeneous and lane-less traffic conditions. The accuracy of such information provided to passengers depends mainly on the estimation method used, which in turns depends on the input data used. Hence, developing suitable estimation methods and identifying the most significant/appropriate input data are important. The present study focused on these aspects of development of estimation methods that can accurately estimate travel time by using significant inputs. In order to identify significant inputs, a data mining technique, namely the k-NN classifying algorithm, was used. It is based on the similarity in pattern between the input and historic data. These identified inputs were then used in a hybrid model that combined exponential smoothing technique with recursive estimation scheme based on the Kalman Filtering (KF) technique. The optimal values of the smoothing parameter were dynamically estimated and were updated using the latest measurements available from the field. The performance of the proposed algorithm showed a clear improvement in estimation accuracy when compared with existing methods.

Road traffic congestion has become a global worry in recent years. In many countries congestion is a major factor, causing noticeable loss to both economy and time. The rapid increase in vehicle ownership accompanied by slow growth of infrastructure has resulted in space constraints in almost all major cities in India. To mitigate this issue, authorities have shifted to more sustainable management solutions like Intelligent Transport System (ITS). Advanced Public Transportation System (APTS) is an important area in ITS which could considerably offset the growing ownership of private vehicles as public transport holds a noticeable mode share in several major cities in India. Getting access to real-time information about public transport would certainly attract more users. In this regard, this work aims at developing a reliable structure for predicting arrival/travel time of various public transport systems under heterogeneous traffic conditions existing in India. The data used for the study is collected from three cities—Surat, Mysore, and Chennai. The data is analyzed across space and time to extract patterns which are further utilized in prediction models. The models examined in this paper are k-NN classifier, Kalman Filter and Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) techniques. The performance of each model is evaluated and compared to understand which methods are suitable for different cities with varying characteristics.