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Data Intelligence in Public Transportation: History
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Contributor: Luis André Fumagalli , Denis Alcides Rezende , Thiago André Guimarães

Transport infrastructure investments must be linked to the public transport demand strategically. User behavior and decision-making process bring several possible alternative transportation options due to a series of factors that define it. Municipalities must manage these factors to promote equal and sustainable transport solutions through urban infrastructure, public transport competitiveness, and attractiveness, and fossil fuels use and pricing policy. Urban management and strategic digital city project can be more balanced and assertive in transport infrastructure investments and citizen services provision.

  • public transport
  • public administration
  • public investments

1. Introduction

Many cities are growing faster than their capacity to manage urban form, structure, and public services. Security, education, healthcare system, and transportation are the main issues to municipal administration, especially in big urban centers where access to those essential services is unequally higher and expensive. Smart city, strategic digital city projects, and public transport are strategic issues because they are mainly responsible for all other public services integration. And crucial for economic development because workers and students are transport dependent to move safely and comfortably to perform their daily activities. The systems perspective allied to new institutional requirements should conduce public transport to affordable and sustainable solutions. The new mobility, city logistics, livability, and intelligent system management are fundamental elements to achieve it successfully [1]. Since all needed information is available almost in real-time, municipalities shall define their urban transport policies to avoid decongestion, energy waste, emissions reduction, and saving money to invest in other critical areas and combating pollution [2][3].
Space and budget are two fundamental limitations for municipal transport strategic management due to buses, cars, and motorcycles sharing the same routes simultaneously. The city does not have sufficient resources to invest in all the infrastructure that each vehicle requires. The exclusive use of public transport causes overcrowding, especially during rush hours and does not cover all transportation needs in many city areas where the density of lines is lower and distances to access them are too long to be covered by foot or bicycle. That makes many passengers prefer to buy or use private motorized vehicles.
However, increasing the number of vehicles to replace public transport causes traffic jams, raises air and noise pollution and causes accidents with significant physical and material damage. Bicycles, in turn, are recognized as a clean, cheap, and sustainable transport mode. However, they still depend on dedicated road infrastructure since they cannot simply move in between other vehicles without cyclists incurring risks. Proper integration avoids that motor vehicle traffic does not suffer a drastic reduction in the number of available lanes and speed, causing inefficiencies and dissatisfaction for users.
Large cities have lost public transport users due to unreliability, lack of comfort, and the fare price charged. The effects of different urban transport modes are interdependent and systemic, and there is no alternative to choosing just one or the other without causing imbalances and negative consequences in terms of operational and economic efficiency and social equitability [1]. Cities need to invest in a planned and strategic direction to establish a clear transport policy to integrate all modes and other innovative solutions. Municipalities must work to turn public transport competitive and attractive, avoiding public roads stopping by the excess of private vehicles and bicycles to have their own space, safe and connected with public transport [4][5]. The inherent conflict between wealth generation and high efficiency in resources utilization with sustainable solutions must be dealt with in the political sphere and administrated by the city authorities [6].

2. Current Work

Public transport represents a critical point in decision-making by municipal governments and administrators due to local development promotion and involves continuous investments that must come from insufficient budgets [7][8]. There is pressure, on the one hand, from users who rely solely on public transport to go from home to school or work, and on the other, the claim for sustainable solutions in the social, economic, political, ecological, environmental, and local territorial spheres [9]. Regarding urban mobility and sustainability criteria [10], the ideal city would be one in which people live at a walking distance or, at most, by bicycle to their daily points of interest to work, study, shopping, groceries, access public services, and to participate in leisure and entertainment activities [11][12].
In parallel, the social status pressure to substitute public transportation with the owned vehicle, preferably the car, still exists [13]. Having the owned car or, when it is not affordable, a motorcycle, represents an icon of personal success [14] or bicycles, which can offer higher economy, freedom, and comfort for those who use it when the geographical and climatic conditions are favorable [4].
All modes require planned, coordinated, substantial, and long-term investments in the city infrastructure to support, in a balanced and efficient way, the increase in the fleet of vehicles of all types, which, most of the time, grows at the expense of public transport use. Curitiba (PR), a city with just over 1.9 million inhabitants [15], is located in the south of Brazil, and known for its sustainable urban mobility solutions and projects [16], is facing a drop of almost 40% in the total number of passengers between the years 2010 and 2019 and its downward trend should also continue due to the pandemic effects. The result of this change in the behavior of public transport users reflects in constant congestion, even outside rush hours, and in the high number of accidents involving motorcycles and, especially, bicycles that do not have exclusive lanes for circulation [17], as with most bus lines throughout the city.
The option for bicycles is notably sustainable, non-polluting, with fewer space requirements, but demands investments in infrastructure for circulation that must integrate with public transport. Otherwise, it will exclude even more passengers from the transport system, returning to the initial problem: affecting the tariff [18]. In this way, public transport, urban mobility, and public investments in these sectors relate to municipal themes that need a holistic transport project that includes municipal strategies, municipal information systems, public services, and information technology resources application [19][20].
Many studies are available in the world literature regarding different factors that affect transport demand. The researchers of [21] proposed a guide on the variables for land transport, including the effects of the fare value, of the quality of service, including time factors, security, and reliability, competition between modes, income, and car ownership, land-use policy, new transport modes, and other transport policies. The researchers of [22] focused on how transit price elasticities can affect passengers’ decisions. The researchers of [23] studied the influences of fares, level of service, salaries, and car property on transportation decisions.
The researchers of [24] also researched the influence of economic cycles on transport demand, including the factors above-mentioned, like fare and fuel prices and private vehicles per capita, with local per capita income and unemployment rates. The researchers of [25] developed a forecast model to anticipate possible moves from public transportation to another private modal improving users’ behavior understanding. Remuneration, stage of life (over 49 years old), changes in mode availability, service, and travel time are relevant variables to predict migration to other modes. The researchers of [26] used a dynamic panel model, and their results show that mobility behaviors are dependent on various variables that include service quality, modal price, and active population.
The researchers of [27] recommended that demand models include car property, fuel and tariff price, salary, and some measure of service among the explanatory variables. Lately, the researchers of [28] tested a model where income directly affects public transport demand and, in opposition, car ownership. In conclusion, although the findings of several previous studies suggest that demand for public transport might be falling with increased income, there is no evidence of such effects even considering 100% influence of changes in income (including changes in car ownership).
Socio-technological artifacts build and organize cities; they are fashioned, modified, and appropriated as part of a long process. Various spatial, social, economic, technological, and political contexts embed these artifacts [29]. Public transport planning is, thus, not an optimal equation result. Political considerations constrain even well-thought-out plans, and hence community structure and power relations must be considered, as well as ‘softer’ psychological factors [30]. The researchers of [31] has pointed out that sustainability and public investments are obstacles for more private-sector investments in infrastructure and stated that the transport system’s operations would be the main transport trends and policies into the 21st century.
In urban centers, changes from motorized vehicles to clean transport modes, combined with land use and proper infrastructure for walking and cycling, will demand integrated planning and managing from the city hall. The result may increase physical activity and reduce non-communicable diseases (NCDs), accidents, pollution, and carbon emissions. Therefore, transport planning and urban configurations must reinforce clean and non-motorized transport alternatives [32].
The researchers of [33] found a power function not limited to the political scenario about how transport demand patterns may affect the public transport offerings. Instead, they can affirm that transport users have other preferable options to quit from the public system, as per private cars and other private services that offer attractive alternatives like car-sharing [5] and transport apps. Urban management processes must include softer elements, such as consumer behavior and choice decisions, power, and conflict. Nevertheless, political influences and biases are embedded in urban transport planning that can benefit groups and jeopardize others [30].
Curitiba’s transport system is dependent on the policy directions developed in the 1970s that remain working all these years. However, interaction, flexibility, and integration with other modern transport solutions and city services are urged [34]. Curitiba administrators learn and innovate incrementally through decades from their local expertise and technical capacity. City institutions responsible for the plan and supervising the city transport system worked together with the urban planning. The continuity in political administration played a decisive role in it together with land-use mobility policies [35].
Smart city and conventional digital city concepts are different from the strategic digital city concept defined by Rezende [36]. It is the application of information technology in the city’s management and the information and services provided to citizens, based on the city management strategies. There are four subprojects: city strategies, cities information, public services, and information technology resources application [19][20]. It can also be considered a city public transport policy [36][37].

This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/su14084683

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