Error correction of arrival time prediction in real time bus information system

Many large cities in Korea have either implemented or are planning to install a bus information system (BIS) in order to improve the quality of service for bus passengers. This is mainly being conducted by providing bus arrival times at bus stops. In these systems, similar systematic errors occur in the estimation of bus arrival times, which are influenced by the information updating time (cycle length) taken to identify each bus location, the information processing time, and the cycle length required to update the bus arrival information on each terminal. The systematic errors can occur in the collection of data, information processing, and in the passenger waiting time. This study investigated these systematic errors and developed a statistical method for correcting these errors in order to improve the accuracy of the BIS information. The proposed method is based on probability density functions and the random incidence concept. The developed method was then applied to the BIS of a city in Korea in order to verify the efficacy of the method. Through the verification results, there was a 23% error reduction after applying the error correction method to the BIS. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.