Products
Estimated Time of Arrival of Public Transport Vehicles to Stops
An application, sponsored by the World Bank Group, was developed to track all public transport vehicles in the city of Kolkata and disseminate their locations to citizens. As part of the implementation, a model was developed to accurately estimate the time of arrival of vehicles to stops, providing citizens to use this information about their choice of travel mode. The model used existing information collected from the buses during their travels and incorporated additional information related to the day of the week, time of day, weather conditions as well as special occasions. The network of routes was divided into route segments and duration was estimated for each segment. The base model was subsequently enhanced by incorporating the time of the most recent vehicles to traverse the segment weighted by recency. The model was incorporated into the application and citizens have enjoyed the benefits of the estimates since 2017.
Consulting
Intra-City Freight Flow in the City of Kolkata
Fright transport around the city of Kolkata is complicated by the presence of River Ganges which requires traversal of the river across two main bridges resulting in congestion and delays. The World Bank Group intended to build roll-on/roll-off jetties at several locations to augment the available routes for trucks to cross the river. A study was commissioned to identify the impact of intra-city freight movement in the city of Kolkata as a result of these new crossings. The city was geographically divided into natural regions demarcated by canals or railway lines such that there were limited ways to cross from one region to the other. At each crossing, surveyors counted all goods transport vehicles while also recording their size and the type of goods carried. The survey lasted one week at each location, twenty-four hours a day. An additional survey was conducted at each large market in the city to interview shop owners to gauge and understand delivery patterns. The results were combined into a topological model which resulted in a visualization of the intra-city traffic flow by type of goods and vehicles across time and day of the week. As a result, the model could deliver a view of the potential consequences of local disruptions and deviations and was used to plan the location of the proposed jetties.
Route Rationalization for West Bengal Transport Department
The public transport network in Kolkata is vast and fragmented, being served by multiple government agencies and many private fleet owners. There was a need to consolidate routes and capacities among these operators to make the network efficient. To achieve this goal, each bus route was mapped by surveyors who marked the de facto trails and stops along with the number of passengers embarking and disembarking at each stop. This data was used to create a geographic and topological model of the bus network. Route sections were characterized and origin-destination level demand was inferred using Monte-Carlo techniques. Routes we then rationalized based on recommendations to merge, extend, or split routes using graph-theoretic measures. The results were presented to Transport Department officials and have since been implemented. This study was undertaken on behalf of the World Bank Group.