DelayRadar: A Multivariate Predictive Model for Transit Systems

TitleDelayRadar: A Multivariate Predictive Model for Transit Systems
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2016
AuthorsOruganti, A., F. Sun, H. Baroud, and A. Dubey
Refereed DesignationRefereed
Conference NameBig Data (Big Data), 2016 IEEE International Conference on
Date PublishedDec
Abstract

Effective public transit operations is one of the fundamental requirements for a modern community. Recently, a number of transit agencies have started integrating automated vehicle locators in their fleet, which provides a real-time estimate of the time of arrival. In this paper, we use the data collected over several months from one such transit system and show how this data can be potentially used to learn long term patterns of travel time. More specifically, we study the effect of weather and other factors such as traffic on the transit system delay. These models can later be used to understand the seasonal variations and to design an adaptive and transient transit schedule. Towards this goal we also propose an online architecture called DelayRadar. The novelty of DelayRadar lies in three aspects: (1) a data store that collects and integrates real-time and static data from multiple data sources, (2) a predictive statistical model that analyzes the data to make predictions on transit travel time, and (3) a decision making framework to develop an optimal transit schedule based on variable forecasts related to traffic, weather, and other impactful factors. This paper focuses on identifying the model with the best predictive accuracy to be used in DelayRadar. According to the preliminary study results, we are able to explain more than 70\% of the variance in the bus travel time and we can make future travel predictions with an out-of-sample error of 4.8 minutes with information on bus schedule, traffic, and weather.

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