The prediction of bus arrival time using global positioning system data and dynamic traffic information

As more and more vehicles are being introduced into the urban streets every year, congestion has become a serious problem in the context of urban transport around the world. A desirable strategy to deal with such issues is to shift more people from personal vehicles to public transport by providing better service (comfort, convenience and so on). Travel time information is a vital component of many intelligent transportation systems (ITS) applications. In this context, advanced public transportation systems (APTS) are one of the most important ITS applications, which can significantly improve the traffic situation in Beijing. One such application will be to provide accurate information about bus arrivals to passengers, leading to reduced waiting times at bus stops. Travel time prediction has been a well-renowned topic of research for years. However, studies which were model based and incorporating dwell times at bus stops and also delay time at signalized intersection explicitly are limited. The present study tries to explicitly incorporate the bus stop delays and signalized intersection delays associated with the total travel times of the buses. This will help in obtaining a reliable algorithm which can be adopted for bus arrival time prediction.