Fwd: Harness the Power of Big Data to ensure bus service quality and ease traffic congestion
Simon H WANG
From: Simon H Wang <simo...@hkbu.edu.hk>
Date: Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 10:38 PM
Subject: Harness the Power of Big Data to ensure bus service quality and ease traffic congestion
To: Letters to the Editor <let...@scmp.com>
In 2017, the Transport Department received about 4,600 complaints related to the regularity and carrying capacity of franchised buses. The department was not able to investigate all the cases thoroughly as it only conducted 1,830 surveys on the bus services in 2017. Instead of relying on occasional surveys and complaints from the public, the department should request real-time data from the bus companies to ensure the quality of bus services and improve the traffic conditions of Hong Kong.
WIth the GPS technologies, the five franchised bus companies have already made available their estimated time of arrival (ETA) information to passengers through their mobile phone apps. Yet, only New Lantau Bus Inc. has provided its application programming interface (API) through which the government can access the ETA information and release it via its smartphone app “HKeMobility”. To facilitate more comprehensive monitoring of the frequencies of bus services, all franchised bus companies should provide machine-readable data about their services to the government.
In addition to ETA data, the bus companies should also provide real-time bus location data that can be used to study the patterns of traffic flow during the rush hours. Collaborating with IBM, the City Council of Dublin was able to monitor the entire bus network through analyzing the real-time geospatial data from 1,000 buses. With the monitoring system, the Council could deploy traffic-calming measures effectively by identifying the root causes of traffic congestion in real time. Informed by the insights from the system, the Council could also add additional bus-only lanes and optimize traffic signal timing for buses to improve traffic flow during rush hours. With five franchised bus companies carrying over 4 million passengers everyday, Hong Kong would benefit tremendously if the government follows Dublin’s example to harness the power of big data from bus companies to ease traffic congestion.
Considering the private ownership of the data and the resources required for data sharing, the government should provide more financial support for the bus companies to invest in the big data technologies for building a smart transport system in Hong Kong.
Disclaimer
This message (including any attachments) may contain confidential information intended for a specific individual and/or purpose. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete this message and notify the sender and the University immediately. Any disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of any action based on it, is prohibited as it may be unlawful.
In addition, the University specifically denies any responsibility for the accuracy or quality of information obtained through University E-mail Facilities. Any views and opinions expressed in the email(s) are those of the author(s), and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the University. The University accepts no liability whatsoever for any losses or damages that may be incurred or caused to any party as a result of the use of such information.