Research on Passenger Carrying Capacity of Taichung City Bus with Big Data of Electronic Ticket Transactions: A Case Study of Route 151

Abstract

In order to find passengers’ behaviors when the passengers take buses, 456 thousand and 82 million records of electronic ticket transactions of route 151 and Taichung City Bus in 2015 are respectively analyzed in this article. There are three statistical/analytic results. First, about 5.26 million electronic ticket users received benefits from Taichung City Government’s policy for a free bus ride within 10 km with an electronic ticket; however, less than 0.5% users still used cash. Second, The passengers usually got on and off route 151 at THSR Taichung Station no matter which direction. Other bus stops for passengers usually getting on and off were T.P.C.C., Wufeng Agr. Ind. Senior High School, Wufeng, and Wufeng Post Office. Finally, on Friday and the day before holidays, many passengers changed their behaviors to take route 151 from Wufeng District to THSR Taichung Station. This change was that the passengers took another bus route to the station near the start station of route 151 to increase the probability to get on the route 151.