Bus arrival time prediction using stochastic time series and Markov chains

157 Pages·2010·6.05 MB·English

by  Rajbhandari, Rajat

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ABSTRACT
BUS ARRIVAL TIME PREDICTION USING STOCHASTIC
TIME SERIES AND MARKOV CHAINS
by
Rajat Rajbhandari
Public transit agencies rely on disseminating accurate and reliable information to transit
users to achieve higher service quality and attract more users. With the development of
new technologies, the concept of providing users with reliable information about bus
arrival times at bus stops has become increasingly attractive. Due to the fact that bus
operation parameters and variables are highly stochastic, modeling prediction of bus
travel and arrival times has become one of the many challenging tasks.
Stochastic time series and delay propagation models to predict bus arrival times
using historical information were developed. Markov models were developed to predict
propagation of bus delay to downstream bus stops based on heterogeneous conditions.
The bus arrival times were predicted using a Markov model only and performance
measures were obtained and a combined arrival time prediction model consisting of delay
propagation and full autoregressive model was also developed. The inclusion of bus
delay propagation into the bus arrival time prediction algorithm is an important
contribution to the research efforts to predict bus arrival times. The research showed that
Markov models can provide accurate bus arrival time predictions without increasing the
need for a large number of bus operation variables, simulations and high polling
frequency of the geographical bus location as used by other modeling approaches.
BUS ARRIVAL TIME PREDICTION USING STOCHASTIC
TIME SERIES AND MARKOV CHAINS
by
Rajat Rajbhandari
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Faculty of
New Jersey Institute of Technology
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Transportation
Interdisciplinary Program in Transportation
January 2005
Copyright © 2005 by Rajat Rajbhandari
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
APPROVAL PAGE
BUS ARRIVAL TIME PREDICTION USING STOCHASTIC
TIME SERIES AND MARKOV CHAINS
Rajat Rajbhandari
Dr. Janice Daniel, Dissertation Advisor Date
Associate Professor of Civil Engineering
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, NJIT
Dr. Athanassios &Maas, Committee Member Date
Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering
Director, Interdisciplinary Program in Transportation, NJIT
DryLazar Spasdvic, Committee Member Date
Professor of Civil Engineering
Director, National Center for Transportation and Industrial Productivity, NJIT
Dr. Rathel-Ettrrommittee Member Date
Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, NJIT

Dr. Stevtn Chien, Committee Member Date
Associate Professor of Civil Engineering
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, NJIT
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Author: Rajat Rajbhandari
Degree: Doctor of Philosophy
Date: January 2005
Undergraduate and Graduate Education:
• Doctor of Philosophy in Transportation,
New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 2005
• Master of Science in Civil Engineering,
New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 2002
• Bachelors in Civil Engineering,
Tribhuwan University, Kathmandu, 1997
Major: Transportation
Presentations and Publications:
Rajat Rajbhandari and Janice Daniel,
"Imioacts of the 65-mph Speed Limit on Truck Safety,"
82na Annual Meeting of Transportation Research Board, Washington D.C.,
January 2003.
Rajat Rajbhandari, Steven Chien and Janice Daniel,
"Estimation of Bus Dwell Time using Automatic Passenger Counter
Information," Transportation Research Record 1841, Transportation Research
Board, 2003.
Janice Daniel and Rajat Rajbhandari,
"Identifying Locations for Bus Nub Installations on Urban Roadways,"
Urban Street Symposium, California, 2003.
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This dissertation is dedicated to my sweet wife, my loving parents, a wonderful sister
and many friends.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Sincere gratitude goes to Dr. Janice Daniel, who guided me ever since I was a master's
student, with whom I had the privilege of working in numerous research projects and
who was my thesis and dissertation advisor. Her constant encouragement has been highly
valuable to me during my entire graduate studies. My appreciation also goes to
Dr. Steven Chien, Dr. Athanassios Bladikas, Dr. Lazar Spasovic and Dr. Rachel Liu for
being on my dissertation committee, and providing me with valuable comments.
Without the financial support of Department of Civil Engineering and National
Center for Transportation and Industrial Productivity at NJIT, I would not have been able
to complete my graduate studies.
Finally, many thanks to amazing friends at NJIT — Xiaobo Liu, Renu Chhonkar,
Chuck Tsai, Arun Raj. I am also thankful to my friends outside NJIT - Anil Tuladhar,
Anish Pradhan and Ramesh Byanjankar for their moral help and support. Finally, I'm
indebted to my wife, Reema, who constantly encouraged me to run when I would be
otherwise dragging my feet.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Problem Statement 2
1.3 Research Objectives 3
1.4 Organization of the Dissertation 4
2 LITERATURE REVIEW 5
2.1 Introduction 5
2.2 Applications of Bus Arrival Prediction Models 5
2.3 Data Source and Errors 6
2.4 Bus Arrival Time Prediction Models 8
2.4.1 Time-Distance Model 8
2.4.2 Regression Models 10
2.4.3 Artificial Neural Network Models 12
2.4.4 Kalman Filter Models 13
2.5 Bus Delay Propagation 15
2.5.1 Delay Propagation Models 15
2.5.2 Finite State Markov Chains 17
2.6 Stochastic Time Series Models 18
2.6.1 Stochastic Models for Traffic Prediction 18
2.6.2 Comparison of ARIMA Models 21
2.7 Summary 22
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