Behavioural analysis of railway passengers using smart card data

Abstract

Smart card systems have been spreading globally not only for purchasing general goods and services, but also for fare payment of public transport. When an individual traveller is holding a public transport smart card, the precise times of his/her passing through ticket gates are recorded in the smart card system. The longitudinal smart card data of a large number of passengers have been stored by a public transport company. The aims of this paper are to analyze the behaviour of railway passengers using the smart card data, and to evaluate the effects of train operation policies. The analysis is focused on the before and after comparison of travel choice behaviour of passengers when the railway company changed the train timetable.