University of Arizona researchers are using big data to help city officials in Fortaleza, Brazil, solve problems relating to long delays and overcrowding on its public buses.Sudha Ram, professor of management information systems and computer science at the University of Arizona. Image credit: University of Arizona.

Sudha Ram, professor of management information systems and computer science, and collaborators helped develop an online dashboard from which Fortaleza city planners can access a wealth of data about the city's bus system to help them better understand where problems exist and make informed decisions about how to fix them. The system incorporates analysis of two years of data from the Fortaleza bus system, used by an estimated 90% of the city's 3 million residents, who collectively take 30 million trips a month.

The researchers looked at how many people rode the bus, and when and where they boarded, using data collected from the cards passengers scan to ride. They also analyzed data from the GPS trackers on each of the city's 2,200 buses, which log location information every 15 to 30 seconds. The locations of the city's 4,800 bus stops, as well as data on weather conditions and traffic accidents that might have contributed to delays, were also considered.

Research led to the development of the dashboard that Fortaleza planners are now using to guide their decisions about where to add additional buses, dedicated bus lanes and more stops and terminals along the city's 320 routes to help improve traffic flow. Using the dashboard, city planners can select a specific bus route, direction, date and hour and determine how many people were on a bus and where service bogged down.

"This is really about harnessing or leveraging data that is coming from the Internet of Things, GPS signals and smart cards," Ram says. Ram and her team are also analyzing Fortaleza's bike-sharing program, which residents access with the same card used on buses. Those whose homes or destinations are not close to a bus stop can use the bike to ride to and from the nearest stop—which planners in Fortaleza refer to as a "first-mile or last-mile solution."