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02/28/2019 | Campus-Meldung

Automatically Determining Demand in Public Transport - Testing in North Hesse

A project by transport scientists at the University of Kassel and other partners aims to improve the planning of public transport services by evaluating data on cell phone locations or requests to the journey planner, for example. The system is being tested in the North Hessian transport association NVV.

Data protection requirements are taken into account from the outset when collecting and evaluating the data.  The project consortium consists of WVI Prof. Dr. Wermuth Verkehrsforschung und Infrastrukturplanung GmbH from Braunschweig, the Nordhessischer Verkehrsverbund (NVV), the Department of Transportation Planning and Systems at the University of Kassel, INIT GmbH from Karlsruhe, and BLIC GmbH from Berlin. The project "Mobile Data Fusion - Automatic Determination of Passenger Demand from AFZS, WLAN, Bluetooth and Connection Data" is being funded by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) as part of the Modernity Fund ("mFUND") funding guideline with a total of 2.5 million euros over a total period of three years.

The aim of the research project is to develop a suitable procedure for mapping current passenger demand. The project consortium will examine how the fusion of different data can support targeted and customer-oriented service planning in public transportation. Data sources include, for example, passenger counting devices, mobile devices, the timetable information system, and the "mCloud". Via the open data portal mCLOUD, the BMVI makes mobility, geo and weather data from its business unit available. So far, there is no suitable procedure that combines all these data. Based on extensive collection, processing and analysis of this input data, public transport operators will in future be able to align their planning even better with demand and reduce cost-intensive surveys of passengers. The mapping of source-destination relationships in the interconnected area is one focus of the process development. The practical usability will be tested in the pilot area of the project partner NVV. The first pilot phase will start in the middle of this year.

As part of the mFUND research initiative, the BMVI has been funding research and development projects related to data-based digital applications for Mobility 4.0 since 2016. In addition to financial funding, the mFUND supports networking between stakeholders from politics, industry and research with various event formats and access to the mCLOUD data portal. For more information, visit www.mfund.de.