Mass transit operators embrace big data to increase efficiency

Chinese public transportation companies are actively using cutting-edge technologies such as big data, voice recognition and mobile payments to increase the appeal of traditional public transport modes like buses and subways.

In Hangzhou, capital of East China’s Zhejiang Province, the Hangzhou Public Transportation Group has just used big data to update the route of the No.113 bus line, the first such example in Hangzhou.

Chen Shicheng, associate manager of the passenger transport department under the Hangzhou Public Transport Group, said that most of the data is collected by the company via passengers’ mobile payments, which is available for all bus lines in Hangzhou.

By analyzing the data, which shows the passengers’ boarding points and other information, the company found that about a dozen stops along the No.113 bus line’s past route were rarely used. The company shifted to a new bypass to skip those stops, which cut its time by about 20 minutes.

“This change has largely increased the bus line’s operation efficiency. Because of the shorter time, we’ve been able to add 10 trips each day using two fewer buses, which has helped us reduce costs. The total passenger flow hasn’t changed much,” he told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Chen attributed the reform to the increasing popularity of mobile payments on buses.

“In the past we had no means to analyze passengers’ habits but could only use methods like checking house lights to estimate the population of certain neighborhoods. But with mobile payment data, we can more accurately assess passengers’ busriding habits,” he said.