EP0201472A1

EP0201472A1 - Method of collecting information

Info

Publication number: EP0201472A1
Application number: EP19860850163
Authority: EP
Inventors: Mats Molandev; Magnus Lövgren
Original assignee: Almex AB
Current assignee: Almex AB
Priority date: 1985-05-08
Filing date: 1986-05-06
Publication date: 1986-11-12
Also published as: FI861872A; DK213886D0; SE8502281D0; DK213886A; SE447854B; FI861872A0; NO861826L; SE8502281L

Abstract

Method of collecting information as to the actual starting and finishing points of journeys taken with public transport, irrespective of changes in route and/or conveyance, at least the points of time and boarding at the start of the journey being registered on a fare document. In conjunction with boarding the conveyance it is examined whether predetermined transfer conditions for a previous journey registered on the fare document are met on boarding, and classifying the journey started on boarding as a new journey if on boarding the prevailing conditions do not meet said transfer conditions, or as a continued journey if the conditions on boarding meet said transfer conditions. For a continued journey, the starting point of the previous journey registered on the fare document is selected as the actual starting point of the journey, and for a new journey there is selected the place of boarding as the starting point for the journey started with the present boarding, and the place of boarding forthe new journey is selected as the actual finishing point of the preceding journey. For a new journey in conjunction with boarding information as to the actual starting and finishing points of the preceding journey is registered and stored either in the conveyance or at the point of boarding. The information stored in the conveyances and at the points of embarkation is collected.

Description

The present invention relates to a method of collecting information concerning the actual starting and finishing points of journeys taken using public transport, independent of changes in route and/or conveyance, information as to the journey, including the place of mounting the conveyance and the time of starting the journey being registered on a fare document.
Within urban areas or other geographic areas with conveyances in fixed routes these routes form a network. These conveyances include railed vehicles such as underground trains and local trains as well as road vehicles such as buses and coaches. In order to come from one optional place to another on such public transport in fixed routes there are transfers between different routes and/or conveyances.
In planing a fixed route, means are required for measuring the transport need for optimally utilizing the different conveyances. It is usual that information from such as population and dwelling censuses are used, where the location of dwelling and work place can be connected together. The disadvantage with such surveys is, inter alia that they are expensive and are therefore seldom performed (usually at intervals of several years). These surveys thus give a rough and static depiction of the transport requirement.
Such information is therefore usually supplemented with the aid of journey habit surveys, where randomly selected passengers are interviewed by telephone as to the actual start and destination of journeys they have taken. This is also expensive and is only undertaken to a limited extent and with low frequency. Typically, this takes place every fifth year.
Now and again there are also interviews on vehicles associated with a given route or a given area, which it is desired to examine specially.
Relation statistics particular to a given route, i.e. information as to boarding and debarkation stops for passengers within a route may be obtained in several ways today, such as registering fare document sales and fare document use, as well as manual or automatic traffic counting.
Such statistics relevant to a given route incompletely depict the journey, however. The different parts of the total journey are registered individually for the travellers who change routes or conveyance (typically every other traveller) and cannot be put together when statistically processing the collected information. The fact that travellers are often compelled to take a roundabout route due to deficient communications thus does not appear in such measurement.
Methods have been proposed where the fare document is given a unique identity, e.g. with an individual number to enable coupling together registrations for different routes. Taking into account the large number of travellers per day within a traffic area this kind of matching must be regarded as extremely impractical.
Methods based on processing the fare document on both boarding and alighting have been proposed, but these result in extended waiting times at stops for certain conveyances, e.g. for buses, or egress times, e.g. for underground trains, which cannot be regarded as acceptable.
It will be seen from the above that there is need of a method of obtaining information as to passengers' total journeys.
This need is met by the present invention, which relates to a method of collecting information in accordance with the preamble to claim 1. This method includes the steps:

Examining in conjunction with boarding a conveyance whether transfer conditions given beforehand for a previous journey registered on the fare document are met on boarding,
classifying the journey started on boarding as a new journey if prevailing conditions on boarding do not meet said transfer conditions, or
classifying the journey as a continued journey if the conditions on embarkation meet said transfer conditions,
the starting point of the previous journey registered on the fare document being selected as the actual starting point of the journey if it is to be continued,
the place of boarding being selected as starting point for a new journey if the journey is started at the same time as boarding takes place,
the place of boarding for a new journey being selected as the actual finishing point of the previous journey,
information as to the actual starting and finishing point of the previous journey being registered and stored either in the conveyance or at the place of boarding for a new journey in conjunction with boarding.
the information stored in the conveyance or at the boarding places being collected.

Preferred embodiments are disclosed in the dependent claims.
The proposed method is based on the following basic principles.
The use of the fare document as a storage medium for information as to the journey taken, the assumption that the target point of the journey is usually also the starting point of the next journey, which is undertaken with the same fare document, and
availability of the fare document on boarding for inspection and registration.
A non-restricting embodiment is described in the following with the aid of an example and the accompanying drawing, on which the figure schematically illustrates the starting and target points of two journeys.
For the later statistic processing, every individual stop may be selected as starting, change of conveyance (transfer) point, or the traffic area may be divided into an optional number of areas suitably grouped into zones. Such a zone may contain a preselected number of stops. The word "zone" in the following example may only include one, or a selected number of stops.
When a journey, e.g. a journey from the home to the place of work, is started at 07.15 hrs at A, which is included in zone 12, the place and time of boarding is registered on a fare document. The following information can be registered, for example, in a suitably coded condition:

"Journey started in zone 12 at 07.15 hrs". A prerequisite is of course that a valid fare document is shown, and that it is assumed here that the conditions for a continued journey are not met. The journey started at A is interrupted at B in zone 23, since the route must be changed or for some other reason. No registration on the fare document is made on alighting. The journey started at A continues at C, which may be the same stop as B where alighting took place.

On boarding in conjunction with alighting (in this case at C), it is decided with the aid of the time registered on the fare document whether boarding at C relates to a new or continued journey. If the validity time of the journey, which may optionally be predetermined has not run out, it is assumed that the boarding at C relates to a continued journey. In this case the place for transfer and the time of starting the continued journey are registered on the fare document. In suitably coded form there thus may be registered "Transfer in Zone 23 at 08.15 hrs". The journey is terminated by alighting at D (zone 17). No registration takes place here.
When the next journey is started, e.g. when the traveller goes home from work, it decided with the aid of the information registered on the fare document whether this boarding relates to a new or a continued journey. In this case it is assumed that the validity time of the journey from the home has been exceeded. A new journey is thus started. Information or relevant parts thereof registered on the fare document relating to the previous journey, supplemented by the identity of the boarding, station, in this case E in zone 17, are registered in the vehicle or at the station on a data carrier for manual or automatic processing. For example, there is registered on the data carrier in suitable form: "Journey taken starting in zone 12 at 07.15 hrs, transfer in zone 23 08.15 hrs and target in zone 17".
When this registration has taken place in the vehicle or at the station, the information on the new journey is also registered on the fare document. Analogous with the journey starting from the home, the following information, for example, is registered in a suitable form on the fare document: "Journey started in zone 17 at 17.15 hrs". This registration may be preceded by removal of the information as to the previous journey. This removal must however take place after registration in the data carrier in the conveyance or at the station.
In the cases where a journey does not have any expressed time of validity, as is often the case with journeys using a season-ticket type document, e.g. a monthly card for an unlimited number of journeys during the time of validity, a fictitious time of validity is inserted in order to distinguish continued and new journey.
Errors occur in the registration in the cases where the assumption as to identity between target and starting point is not met, e.g. due to the traveller going by taxi in one direction, or changing cards without transferring information between them. However, this is accepted as the price of obtaining cheap information.
The information collected in the conveyances and at the stations with regard to journeys undertaken can then be processed centrally.

Claims

1. A method of collecting information as to the actual starting and finishing point of journeys taken on public transport, irrespective of changes in route and/or conveyance, at least the place of boarding and the time of starting the journey being registered on a fare document for a journey, characterized in that in conjunction with boarding a conveyance examining whether transfer conditions given beforehand for a previous journey registered on the fare document are met on boarding, classifying the journey started on boarding as a new journey if prevailing conditions on boarding do not meet said transfer conditions, or classifying the journey as a continued journey if the conditions on boarding meet said transfer conditions, the starting point of the previous journey registered on the fare document being selected as the actual starting point of the journey if it is to be continued, the place of boarding being selected as starting point for a new journey if the journey is started at the same time as boarding takes place, the boarding place for a new journey being selected as the actual finishing point of the previous journey, information as to the actual starting and finishing point of the previous journey being registered and stored either in the conveyance or at the place of boarding for a new journey in conjunction with boarding the information stored on the conveyance or at the boarding places being collected.

2. Method as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that for a journey there is registered on the fare document the starting point of the journey and such information on the journey as is required for examining whether the conditions for subsequent boarding meet the transfer conditions for the journey.

3. Method as claimed in either claim 1 or 2, characterized in that for a continued journey in conjunction with boarding there is also registered on the fare document the starting point for the journey.

4. Method as claimed in claim 3, characterized in that for a new journey in conjunction with boarding, there are stored and registered all the starting points of the preceded journey, either in the conveyance or at the point of boarding.

5. Method as claimed in any one of claims 1-4, characterized in that after the registering in the conveyance or at the point of boarding, information as to the preceding journey is erased from the fare document.

6. Method as claimed in any one of claims 1-5, characterized in that the predetermined transfer conditions for a continued journey are a preselected time after the start of the new or the continued journey.