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Publications

Publications by CEGI

2020

An In-Depth Study of Mobile Ticketing Services in Urban Passenger Transport

Authors
Campos Ferreira, M; Galvão Dias, T; Falcão e Cunha, J;

Publication
Smart Systems Design, Applications, and Challenges - Advances in Computational Intelligence and Robotics

Abstract
This chapter presents an in-depth study of the current situation of mobile ticketing services in the context of urban passenger transport, and points out future trends and directions that will define forthcoming versions of mobile ticketing services. It defines mobile ticketing services and presents the technologies most used to deliver these solutions. This is complemented by a survey of research studies and experiences of deployments in a real environment. The mobile ticketing ecosystem is then deeply explored, where key players are identified as well as their key drivers and concerns regarding mobile ticketing services. Finally, future trends and research opportunities regarding mobile ticketing solutions are presented.

2020

Is Bluetooth Low Energy feasible for mobile ticketing in urban passenger transport?

Authors
Campos Ferreira, M; Dias, TG; Falcão e Cunha, J;

Publication
Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Abstract
Millions of people use public transport on a daily basis. Although most public transport systems use traditional ticketing approaches, based on tickets and smartcards, there are already ticketing alternatives based on smartphones. Most of the mobile ticketing solutions developed and available in the market use technologies such as Near Field Communication (NFC) or Quick Response Codes (QR Codes), and there are practically no studies on the use of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) for this purpose. This paper focuses on assessing the feasibility of using BLE beacons for mobile ticketing in urban passenger transport. The study was conducted during the development of a mobile ticketing solution for the Metropolitan Area of Porto (AMP) that takes advantage of the Bluetooth technology present on the passengers' smartphones. It uses BLE beacons to track the passengers' trips from the start to the end, as part of an implementation of a check-in/be-out system. This solution was implemented as a prototype to be tested in the AMP and all the tests performed were made during the course of a pilot test of this prototype. The study consisted of a set of technical tests related with beacons signal monitoring and the gathering and analysis of passengers' feedback who participated in a four months pilot test. The results obtained suggest that the BLE technology is feasible for mobile ticketing in urban passenger transport. The paper also presents the various available deployment alternatives, identifies the main problems found and proposes solutions to solve them, filling an important research gap in the literature. © 2020 The Authors

2020

Average Speed of Public Transport Vehicles Based on Smartcard Data

Authors
Costa, V; Borges, JL; Dias, TG;

Publication
Smart Systems Design, Applications, and Challenges - Advances in Computational Intelligence and Robotics

Abstract
In public transport, traveler dissatisfaction is widespread, due to long waits and travel time, or the low frequency of the service provided. Public transport providers are increasingly concerned about improving the service provided. To improve public transport, detailed knowledge of the network and its weaknesses is necessary. An easy and cheap way to achieve this information is to extract knowledge from the data daily collected in a public transport network. Thus, this chapter focuses on data analysis resulting from the smartcard-based ticketing system. The main objective is to detect patterns of average speed for all days of the week and times of the day, along with pairs of consecutive stops. To perform the analyses, the average speed was deduced from ticketing data, and clustering methods were applied. The results show that it is possible to find segments with similar patterns and identify days and times with similar patterns.

2020

A multi objective approach for DRT service using tabu search

Authors
Torgal, M; Dias, TG; Fontes, T;

Publication
Transportation Research Procedia

Abstract
Urban population is increasing fast. This is creating new challenges to public transport systems since some groups of citizens as elderly people may have sensory, cognitive or motor impairments that need to be addressed. This work explores the potential of a Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) system for people with reduced mobility in an urban environment. For this purpose, the Dial-A-Ride Problem (DARP) was implemented using a multivariable minimisation approach. In this approach, an Assigning Request to Vehicles (ARV) algorithm is used to obtain an initial solution. Then a Multi-Objective Tabu Search Algorithm (MOTSA) is applied to the initial solution to search for the non-dominated solution (optimisation phase). In this optimisation phase, the total travelled distance, the deadheading distance and the number of vehicles were minimised. The performance of the model was computed combining different parameters' values of the number of requests, boarding time for each user, the number of seats in each vehicle, vehicle's speed, the total number of iterations, and candidate threshold number (the algorithm's parameter). The computational results found a strong positive correlation between the number of requests and the: total travelled distance (rs = 0.977, p-value<0.001) and the number of vehicles (rs =0.883, p-value<0.001); and a low positive correlation between the number of requests and the optimised total travelled distance (rs =0.331, p-value<0.001) and the optimised number of vehicles (rs =0.340, p-value<0.001). © 2020 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V.

2020

Understanding mobility patterns and user activities from geo-tagged social networks data

Authors
Carvalho, AM; Ferreira, MC; Dias, TG;

Publication
Transportation Research Procedia

Abstract
Social networks are strongly present in the daily life of modern society. Most people use these social networks to share information about their lives, their opinions, places they visit and their state of mind. Generally, these posts are composed of various information, being the location of the users location part of the data. The purpose of this work is to obtain the location of the posts and observe the users mobility pattern in the city of Porto, Portugal. This paper discusses the technologies available for obtaining the data, the social networks currently worth studying and their respective restrictions. It also explores new approaches to collect the data from the desired social networks, respecting all restrictions currently applied. The different software solutions developed for the social networks interactions are explored and described in depth. Subsequently, the necessary software for social networks is reviewed, the possible algorithms for data mining are discussed and its implementation is presented. Finally, the results obtained are interpreted and studied according to the characteristics of the city, tourism promotions and transport routes. © 2020 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V.

2020

A Survey of Mobile Ticketing Services in Urban Mobility Systems

Authors
Ferreira, MC; Dias, TG; Falcão e Cunha, J;

Publication
International Journal of Smart Sensor Technologies and Applications

Abstract
Modern mobile ticketing service solutions facilitate access to mobility services and free customers from difficult purchasing decisions. However, implementing these solutions is complex, as they involve many different stakeholders, with sometimes conflicting interests. This paper presents a survey of mobile ticketing services in the urban mobility context. It starts by defining mobile ticketing and explores the different electronic ticket schemes that are being implemented around the world, as well as the most used technologies to provide the service. Then, it addresses the complex mobile ticketing ecosystem, identifying the main actors involved, their motivations, and concerns. This allows the authors to define their role and contribution to the mobile ticketing ecosystem. Finally, the paper presents future trends and research directions related to mobile ticketing services, being a valuable guide for researchers and practitioners.

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