Areas of application

1) Public transport vehicle maintenance:

The public transport vehicles in India are plagued by frequent breakdowns and poor
maintenance leading to a below average or meagre footfall and revenue. An illustrative
example is the fact that KSRTC generates significant revenue and is one of the most
profitable state-run transport corporations in India. This can be attributed to their
investment in comfortable, high quality coaches as well as superior maintenance. On the
other hand, TNSTC still operates age old coaches that are not only prone to repair but
also highly uncomfortable for passengers. They have been reluctant to invest in
sophisticated and plush buses like Volvo/Mercedes Benz. Not surprisingly, TNSTC is
suffering from operational losses and poor patronage by commuters.
2) Comprehensive connectivity:
For greater patronage, a comprehensive and far reaching network is vital. In other words,
people tend to favour a transportation network that offers greater connectivity, often at
the expense of comfort and ride quality. The Mumbai sub-urban rail system is spread
over 400 km and its footfall is over 7.5 million everyday i.e. almost 20 times greater than
the Mumbai metro, notwithstanding the fact that metro rides are more safe, comfortable
and less chaotic. The range of the metro is 20 times lesser than the Mumbai local and
hence heuristically speaking, footfall is proportional to the range of connectivity offered,
at least for the largely middle class, lower middle class population in India.
3) Punctuality of mass transport: Buses and trains fail to abide by their pre-defined schedule
due to inclement weather, traffic snarls, breakdowns and a plethora of other reasons. This
causes significant hassle to commuters, especially during the peak hours, when there is a
rush to get to work. Inevitably, the consumers resort to personal transportation, leading to
a fall in revenue. A common phenomenon observed in town bus infrastructure is
something termed as ‘Bus Bunching’. As a consequence of poor scheduling and
adherence to schedules, multiple buses of the same route bunch together at a particular us
stop. The result is that all the buses run at below optimum capacity, losing out on
revenue.
4)
 Methodology
Application of internet of things and machine learning
1) Sensors can be installed in public transport vehicles to detect deviations in
mechanism and compare them with a database of anomalies. Hence, a potential
breakdown can be avoided and costly repairs prevented. A classifier can be trained
from the sensor feed data to identify vehicles with deviations from optimal working
conditions and the results of the classifier can be fed back into the database to
supplement it. Real time monitoring plays a pivotal role in minimizing disruptions
and slashing downtime. Some of the parameters that can be monitored are engine heat
emission patterns, temperature, fuel and coolant status etc. Some of the simple yet
effective classifiers that can be employed are support vector machines and logistic
regression models. At a more advanced level, an artificial neural network can be
trained.

Anomaly detection using Neural Network-

A multilayer feedforward neural network is formulated to identify normal classes.
During the training, data from the sensor is compressed through multiple layers and
learning is accomplished. Also, for anomaly detection, number of output neurons is equal
to number of input neurons. While testing, the data sample xi is reconstructed by
backpropagation and the result obtained is oi. A new index δi called reconstruction error
is defined to characterize the anomaly.

Optimization of public transport-

Stipulated intervals must be specified between two successive buses to prevent bus bunching and
real time data of location of buses can be fed into algorithms like linear regression for predicting
delays as well as informing the drivers about the estimated time of departure of buses to ensure
equal spacing. Some of the algorithms used are clustering analysis and Kalman filtering to
establish predicted times of arrival.
The following section illustrates the use of k means clustering algorithms- the data of delays is
clustered, taking into account the delay time and time during the day by minimizing the
following equation-

This gaussian distribution represents the results of a random sampling of delays in bus schedule
on a random route or part of the route. Toward the finish of every month, this time point
information is brought into the database. The information is then partitioned into 7 gatherings as
per the day in the week. We at that point create the bunches and ordinary dispersions for all the
course portions in each gathering. The gaussian is retained in the database so that the clustering
analysis does not have to be run for every query.
Optimization Algorithm for Dynamic Bus scheduling-
Here, a rolling time window method is employed. During a specific time point at a particular
depot, some buses have departed and some buses are yet to depart. Real time information is
obtained from the various iot devices like GPS trackers, sensors, cameras etc. and based on this
real time data, the speeds of the departed buses will be altered for optimal scheduling and the
departure times of the buses in queue will be established for optimized timetable. The particular
window of analysis is called planning horizon and this planning horizon moves forward in time
in discrete intervals.
Some of the metrics used to determine the efficiency of a public transit system are waiting time,
running time, accessibility, frequency etc. This method employs waiting time as the evaluation
criterion.
Sum of the following two components will give the waiting time-

a) Waiting time of passengers for the first arrival of bus i at stop m in the current planning horizon:

b) Waiting time of passengers waiting at stop m for bus i as they could not get on the bus i-1 as it
was running at full capacity:

Where,

Now, the sum of the above-mentioned components must be minimized.

Core concepts-
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/trichy/bengaluru-bound-setc-buses-losing-out-to-
comfy-ksrtc/articleshow/69333304.cms
http://cucis.ece.northwestern.edu/projects/DMS/publications/AnomalyDetection.pdf#37