Integration of digital technologies for smart public transport planning

Abstract

Technology is ever changing and it has been constantly disrupting the way we live. The 20th century saw rapid changes in mobility by technological innovations. As these innovations grow at scale, we need to understand how we can use and adapt these technologies to create a supportive commuter ecosystem for betterment of mobility and enhancement of public transport usage. The past trends of the urban mobility scenario in India indicate the rapid increase in transport demand, increase in motor vehicle ownership, decrease in public transport ridership which is leading to major problems such as congestion and pollution. The solution to these problems can be obtained by improving the public transport system in the city to reduce the use of private vehicles. There is inadequate usage of technologies in public transport in India and improvement projects are majorly focusing on improvement of the physical infrastructure and operations. Instead of giving priority to building additional infrastructure, technological innovations can be used to understand and manage the demand for travel, improve commuter experience and maximize the efficiency and reliability of existing assets. There are many studies that focused on public transport improvement to increase the quality and patronage of the transit. Majority of these studies have focused on the factors like infrastructure, operations, funding, policy and institutional arrangements. The technology aspect in public transport improvement has not gained much focus in previous studies particularly until very recent times. The studies that explored these technology aspects have pointed to the problem of poor adoption of intelligent transport solutions in public transit systems and emphasized the importance of these innovations for improving the customer experience. Considering this as the problem statement, the hypothesis of the research is framed as “The integration of digital technologies improves the customer experience in the public transit system and helps in the increased adoption of public transportation”. The study begins by taking this as an assumption which will be proved later after testing.The methodology for the research consists of five stages. First stage is defining the research area in which introduction to the topic and motivation for taking the research topic is discussed. The second stage of the research methodology is identification of problem statements. It consists of background literature on public transport and digital technologies, the need of the study by identifying the gaps in literature and formulation of problem statements and hypotheses based on the identified gaps. The third stage of the research is designing of the framework. In this stage; aim, objectives, scope and limitation of the research are formulated. In the fourth stage, the implementation of the framework, the series of action items that are needed for achieving the aims of the research are designed in line with the objectives. It consists of literature study on travel behavior and digital technologies and the proposal of the solution to the commuter problems through digital technology integration. The proposed solution is validated by assessing the impact of these technological innovations when integrated with the public transit system in a selected urban area and how the integration may change the commuter’s decision about the mode of travel from private vehicle to public transport. Perception based surveys were conducted on both car users and public transit users in Hyderabad city to understand their problems and attitudes towards public transit commute. Method of analysis adopted for validation is calculation of generalized cost and Analytic hierarchy Process. The final stage of the research methodology is findings and conclusion. This research identified the problems of the commuters in using the public transit system and proposed appropriate solutions using digital technology integration. From the study It is understood that technology applications like Internet of things (IoT) and Artificial intelligence (AI) deployment in public transport helps to improve the quality and efficiency of the transit system and provide efficient, safer and costeffective services to commuters. Also, this research focused on achieving “Complete Trip” using public transport by providing seamless travel conditions to the commuters. It provided an opportunity for further exploration on this interdisciplinary study between the domains of Transport and Digital technologies.