Transit Quality of Service Assessment Using Smart Data

In this paper we assess the transit quality of service (QoS) from a user's standpoint, using smart data. A number of bus lines with different characteristics, operating in the Metropolitan Area of Athens, were chosen as a case study. The data used were gathered by an Automatic Passenger Counting (APC) system. APC technologies provide exact temporalized passenger counting along the line for each service, thus assisting to better understand causalities of delays and avoid operational problems. By employing archived APC data from buses running on crosstown routes between 15 January 2019 and 15 April 2019 we conducted a statistical analysis to explore occupancies and assess QoS, including under a social distancing scenario. The passenger distribution along the stops, the bus's occupancy level, the stops that are maximum occupancy points and their rate of occurrence and, lastly, the passenger's average trip length during the day and the week are examined.