Is this the future of public transport network planning?

Designing responsive, efficient and user-centric public transport networks is a complex balancing act. The challenges that come with public transport planning – ensuring adequate coverage, determining optimal routes and stops, meeting demand in an intelligent way across multiple modes of public transport – aren’t easy ones to wrangle with, and working through them requires a dynamic understanding of how the population moves.  

Existing methods of digging out these insights (ticketing data, travel surveys) show us a valuable part of what is a complicated picture. However, the arrival of mobile phone GPS trace data (or People Movement Data) as a means of travel pattern analysis gives public transport planners an opportunity to shape better PT networks.

People Movement Data can be used in novel ways to analyse how people move because of its inherent characteristics (it’s granular, spatiotemporal in nature and almost ubiquitous in its coverage), and these factors can be used to guide multiple parts of the public transport network planning process.

1. Data that doesn’t discriminate

Mobility data shows where people move, regardless of mode of transport. This ‘mode-agnostic’ power makes it possible to see overall travel demand across the network, which can be used to identify strengths and weaknesses in a holistic way. This can then be leveraged to highlight and address inadequacies in the public transport network that need attention.

2. Analyse outside the box

It’s incredibly valuable to know how people are moving through PT networks, but where do they come from to reach them, and where do they go after leaving them? Identifying detailed movement patterns on the origins, destinations and routes that travellers take is an objective way to detect imbalances and then optimise routes and schedules. Are locals avoiding their local train station because of poor parking options? Given where people are travelling from, is there a strong case for a new stop or station?

3. Find round the clock movement insights

It’s common knowledge that where people travel tends to change depending on the time of day, the day of the week and more. Because People Movement Data is spatiotemporal, PT planners can investigate these changes by connecting movement activity with the times at which they occur.

This capability can be used to highlight how public transport demand changes across the day and night (or track the impact of events and network disruptions during specific periods of time), which in turn can guide route allocation, frequency and other factors that help make the PT network efficient and effective across the entire day.

4. Get closer to the action

People Movement Data has a high level of spatial accuracy, which makes it possible to analyse movement activity on a smaller scale than other geospatial datasets. This level of granularity can be combined with Origin-Destination analysis to find deep travel insights within tight geographical confines. For PT planners, this natural advantage can be leveraged to investigate travel patterns to and from specific stops and stations.

5. Take a look at the big picture

Mobile phones, fitness trackers and other GPS-enabled devices that contribute to People Movement Data are almost ubiquitous in their coverage. They go where we go, and this fact means that the gathered opt-in data depicts movement activity across Australia.  

For planners, this level of coverage and detail makes it easy to understand travel patterns across different demographics and regions, including both metropolitan and regional areas, from which it’s possible to draw insights and learn from them in service of your own project’s outcomes.