Big Data Analytics: Estimation of

Destination for Users of Bus Rapid Transit

(BRT) Public Transportation in Jakarta
Muhammad Syarif
Department of Electrical and
Information Engineering
Universitas Gadjah Mada
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
muhammad.syarif@mail.ugm.ac.id
Widyawan
Department of Electrical and
Information Engineering
Universitas Gadjah Mada
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
widyawan@ugm.ac.id
Teguh Bharata Adji
Department of Electrical and
Information Engineering
Universitas Gadjah Mada
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
adji@ugm.ac.id

Abstract—Origin-Destination (OD) matrix is a metric which
has become the main requirement in the analysis of the
transportation system. This measurement has been made a
model for management, development, and transportation
planning purposes. Entering the era of big data, the
infrastructure that is used to measure OD matrices has also
changed. Due to the development of the Intelligence
Transportation System (ITS), estimation of the origin-
destination flow of transportation users is utilized as an
approach to observe travel behavior of public transport users
formulated in the OD matrix. The infrastructure has been
developed a lot to get user’s behavior by recording their
transactions. This research presents the method of alighting
station estimation from the Automated Fare Collection (AFC)
transaction data on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) smart card users
between bus stations and corridors, with OD matrices as its
parameters. The estimated travel destination of users with the
same day trip chaining approach was explained in this study.
Validation is done by comparing OD matrices with available
entry-exit AFC. The comparison of the results of estimated
validation between corridors and stops as a comparison of the
scope of research on the behavior of travel users is presented.
The purpose of this study is to determine the level of validity of
the OD matrix estimation results validated with AFC data
entries using the method approach that had been offered. The
results of comparisons at each level (corridor - bus stop) show
that the approach provides results with accuracy up to 94%.
The comparison of destination estimation at each level shows
that OD matrix validity will be better at higher levels.
Keywords—OD Matrices, AFC, Trip Chaining
I. INTRODUCTION
Origin-Destination matrix is an important element in
transportation management. The matrix is a measurement for
modeling transportation conditions from various levels.
Studies on system modeling in strategic management using
the OD matrix as an input has been carried out to solve
various transportation cases. This matrix represents how
users behave in travel, where users start to travel and where
they stop[1].
AFC is a ticket system that has been widely used in
various public transportation to record user transactions. It
records user transactions that allow for the transportation
system's OD matrix analytic process time by time. The study
and implementation of the AFC system have been carried out
in many public transportations in the world on various
modes[2]. Jakarta, as a capital city in Indonesia with a high
population density, has implemented the AFC system in the
BRT transportation mode as a way of user transactions. As
one of the main public transportation systems, BRT becomes
the solution to the severe congestion problems in Jakarta, the
first to be implemented in Southeast Asia with the longest
line in the world[3]. The use of AFC in many countries
around the world relies on entry-only systems, where users
are only recorded when boarding. This system is used to
reduce the possibility of delay on the device when the user
performs data logging at the alighting station. However, the
use of this system in public transportation makes it difficult
to analyze travel behavior and density of users, since it
requires specific destination inference so that accurate OD
matrix estimation can be done[4].
The estimation of the OD matrix in BRT Jakarta has been
carried out by Widyawan et al. by using entry-only AFC data.
The study was able to model the number of transactions
registered on the system and describe them to OD matrices
[1]. The first problem of the research is that the estimation
results cannot explain the actual behavior of BRT users. This
is due to a large number of anomalies described in the study
that made destination cannot be estimated properly. The
second problem is the validation of the estimated results was
also not done both internally and externally, as there is no
exit data available.
The aims of the research are to address both problems by
estimating the BRT passenger’s destination in Jakarta at
various levels of available pathways by making OD matrices
as a result and validating the results by using AFC exit data
as a valid destination.
In the next section, the current studies, the description of
the data, the flow of the destination estimation method, and
the results of estimation and validation are presented.
II. CURRENT STUDIES
There are many ways to perform destination inference in
order to generate OD matrix, depending on the dataset
provided at the case. The trip chaining method is a method
commonly used by researchers to find out the boarding and
alighting stations of users for estimating OD matrix. Many
kinds of research modified the travel assumptions on the
object of study and validated the assumptions made.
Wang et al.[2] made the trip chaining with three
assumptions to estimate alighting station : the final

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destination station of the user’s trip is the same as the station
on the first transaction on the same day, there is no private
mode of transportation at the daily trip sequence, and there is
no passengers who walk at long distance between
intermediary stations. The study used a combination of data
entry-only AFC and AVL (Automated Vehicle Location)
carried out for public transportation cases, with minimum
number of destinations inferred was 57% using manual
survey validation. Due to an assumption which limited the
use of private mode, this study did not always work,
especially in intermediary trip. Besides, there was no actual
validation or any method for obtaining distance parameters
assumption stated in the study to measure walking range of
passengers between stations.
In the term of validation of OD matrix, Nassir et al.[5]
validated the OD matrices using entry-only AFC dataset to
infer boarding and alighting stops based on location and
GTFS (Google’s General Transit Feed Specification) which
provide schedule information. The verification was
performed by comparing the estimated boarding and
alighting location results with the combined APC-VL
(Automated Passenger Count-Vehicle Location) data
provided in the study and drew 98% results. This happened
due to the sources of verification data was completely
provided, which is not always available in other cases.
Munizaga et al.[6] estimated alighting station to get OD
matrix from smart card data of passive entry-only AFC
system for bus and metro. AFC and GPS data from public
transportation vehicles were used to predict alighting station
of the user. 80% of the alighting stations in all modes of
transportation can be estimated. This study used the same
assumptions as Barry et al.[7], and Trepanier et al.[8]
regarding the assumption of trip chaining, and added
objective functions involving general time, walking distance
parameters 1000 m by determining the shortest distance
using Djikstra, as well as other influencing factors. However,
the study was only able to estimate the user’s journey
through data recorded on the metro, bus, and bus stops. The
estimation results were not validated to find out the
correctness of the estimation results that lead to the truth of
the OD matrix prediction results. Munizaga et al.[9] then
validated assumptions from the OD matrix estimation results
in the case of the metro transaction database on the user card.
The validation was performed by using the OD matrix survey
on the transaction cards of registered users.
Furthermore, Alsgar et al. added the assumption of
transfer time in the form of ITT (Inter Transfer Time) in
intermediary trip which explained the behavior of users in
making travel transfers from time to time in the case of AFC
entry-exit interconnection networks for public transportation
buses, trains and ferries. This study investigated transfer
times between 15 - 90 minutes with a 15-minute incremental
increase to determine whether the trip is complete or still in
transfer [10]. Alsgar et al. then developed OD matrix
estimation on the same dataset, by developing the assumption
of trip chaining and validating with actual data on passenger
boarding and alighting [11]. This study changed the
assumption to add the final destination of the trip as a
correction of the final destination of the system, which is
based on the following:
1. Finding the last alighting station using route trip ID.
2. Finding the alighting station on the same route that is
closest to the first boarding station transaction from
the same day.
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3. Using the station as the last destination.
The spatial validation was performed by A.A.Nunes et al.
to validate trip chaining algorithm in the case of entry-only
AFC assumptions that is integrated with AVL on the bus.
The use of AVL, in this case, was a tool to record bus stops
to be included in the user's smart card transaction. Recording
of the candidate destination, in this case, used Euclidean
Distance as the tolerance distance among the candidates for
the first trip with the next origin. The validation was
performed by experimental methods before and after the
implementation of spatial validation, by seeing the number of
destinations can be estimated[4]. However, the spatial
validation did not represent the quantitative results to
compare with estimated OD matrices as actual counts. This
case also happened in the research performed by Hora J et
al.[12], who assumed the maximum transfer distance by
using Manhattan Distance has more realistic measure of
walking distance.
As a resume, many assumptions were made to model trip
chaining for destination inference and OD matrix generation
purposes with datasets provided in the cases respectively.
Nevertheless, the model has not been validated with the
actual passenger's behavior of boarding and alighting as
ground truth. Therefore, the exit data drew from entry-exit
AFC was considered better in this research to represent
validation of the estimated model and assumptions in every
passenger transactions at every level.
III. DATA DESCRIPTION
This study uses fact data from BRT transactions in
Jakarta, which has 14 corridors with 242 stops serving 6
cities and 34 districts. Transaction data is the data obtained
from the AFC BRT system through transportation users’
smart cards. Earlier in 2014, the government implemented an
AFC payment system with an entry-only mechanism, i.e.
passengers make ‘a tap-in’ to be able to enter the departure
stop as a payment method. The mechanism changed in 2017
when the government implemented an entry-exit system to
obtain OD matrix data through the results of recording
passenger transactions when entering and leaving the bus
stop.
This study uses BRT transaction data in Jakarta from 01
to 08 December 2017 with ‘a tap-out’ mechanism as a
destination estimation ground, with a number of more than 1
million transactions and average daily transactions after
preprocessing around 140,000. OD matrix will be used as
metric data on the estimation and validation of origin and
destination. To implement the algorithm, this research used
following information: timestamp of the transaction, user’s
smartcard serial number, bus stop, flag status (in and out),
and the reference of corridors, sub-corridors, and stops.
IV. DESTINATION INFERENCE METHOD
This section describes the process of user travel
destination inferences which is divided into two stages i.e.
data preprocessing and estimation method using trip chaining
algorithm. Both stages will be explained in Sub Section IIIA
and IIIB. Data preprocesses explain how to filter data to
reduce data anomalies due to procedural errors that occur at
the application level in the field, such as data redundancy,
user transaction confusion, and system abuses. The
estimation method section describes the method used to
estimate a destination with an OD matrix as its output. In the
matrix validation part, an endogenous validation mechanism
is explained, which describes the validation method based on
the primary data available on the internal system.
A. Data Preprocessing
The data processed in this study is BRT transaction data
for 8 days. The data obtained is data that satisfies the
attributes of the AFC entry-exit system, namely the presence
of in and out flags for each transaction to mark the user’s
boarding or alighting status. The data is then processed by
performing a cleaning process from duplication and deletion
of users who do not fulfill system attributes. The transaction
screening process is carried out to obtain valid user Fig. 2. The frequency of raw transactions each day
transaction data. The process of filtering data to get user data
is described in Fig.1, by fulfilling the following steps: After passing the preprocessing stage of the data, the
1. Perform a process of removing duplicate data that number of transactions has decreased. The filtering process
occurs due to errors at the application level. on the preprocessing phase is required to see the data that has
valid users. The number of transactions at the validated user
2. Remove a single transaction, a transaction that is only level is calculated and illustrated in Fig. 3.
done once a day.
3. Filter travel data of users who have completed the
transactions, namely those who perform tap-in and
tap-out.
4. Group transactions for users who tap at the adjacent
time.
The result of preprocessed data is in the form of
transaction data with an entry flag to enter the destination
estimation process. The data is sorted by transaction time and
user ID.
Fig. 3. The frequency of filtered transactions each day

Fig. 2 and 3 show a significant reduction in the number of

user transactions from raw data to filtered data to obtain
validated data. This shows the large number of BRT users in
Jakarta who do not have a personal smart card as the
transaction tool.
The filtering process is made to see valid user data, but not
enough to notice any smart card that is used together.
Grouping accounts that perform transactions together are
carried out in order to filter them better, indicated from data
records that have close a time with the same flag. The
number of transactions that are validated by user grouping is
illustrated in Fig. 4.

Fig. 1. Sample of a filtering transaction process

Between these dates, the total transactions carried out by

the AFC tap-in and tap-out system are 4.7 million with
average daily transactions of more than 590,000 transactions.
All daily transactions at all levels are then analyzed. The
frequency of daily transactions of all dates in the raw data is
described in Fig. 2. Fig. 4. The frequency of grouped transactions each day

Fig. 4 should show the reduction in number from the

filtered transactions, due to transactions performed by the
user in a limited time range are grouped in a single
transaction. This shows that the reduction resulted was not
significant. The study also analyzes daily transactions on raw
data and validated data, which shows a decrease in
transactions at both raw and validated data on holidays. The
decreased transactions in both show a reduction in active
participation on personal cards and BRT user officers.

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B. Trip Chaining Algorithm
The trip chaining is a method used to make OD matrix on
transactions. In this study, a trip chaining is carried out by
applying appropriate assumptions to the object of research.
The assumptions applied are as follows:
1. There is no single transaction counted as an OD pair
on the trip.
2. There is no transaction with unpaired flags.
3. The alighting stop on the transaction is the same as
the next boarding stop for the same user.
4. The passengers will return to the place where they
boarded the first day at the end of the trip.
Fig. 5 describes how the assumptions were implemented
in the model to estimate alighting station in every
passenger’s transaction. In the study conducted by
Widyawan et al.[1], a single transaction on AFC entry-only
system was included in the analysis process, by invoking the
same destination as the origin of the transaction. Basically,
destination inference in the case of a single transaction
cannot be performed by the trip chaining method. Therefore,
in this study, a single transaction was removed at the
preprocessing stage.
Fig. 5. Trip Chaining for destination inference
V. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
The application of the algorithm in this study was done
using Apache Spark as an analytic processor and Jupyter
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Notebook as its processing interface. This section describes
an analysis of anomalies found in preprocessing data and the
comparison with the processed data. Analysis of multilevel
estimation results is also presented to compare the estimation
matrix with actual data.
A. Analysis of Data Anomalies
The detection of data anomalies was done by assessing
unusual transactions found in the dataset. The problem shows
that there were so many transactions made by a single card.
These were carried out possible by the officers, and users
who perform transactions in groups. Another problem shows
in transactions which do not have complete trips. Table I
describes the differences between the raw and processed
transactions to distinguish data anomalies.
!"#$% '(")*++*, !($-+$)#."-
× 100% (1)
!"#$% /$0 !($-+$)#."-
TABLE I. COMPARISON BETWEEN RAW AND PROCESSED
TRANSACTION
Transactions Result Count
Raw
Total 4,753,334
Mean Transactions Each User 226.5
Processed
Total 1,162,300
Mean Transactions Each User 13.75
Sum of OD Pair 573,222
Table I shows the results from preprocessing step to
algorithm implementation in general. The data shows that
there were many transactions carried out by officers that
cause transaction anomalies. The anomalies can be seen from
the average number of most user transactions on raw data
reaching more than 200 transactions each day. These
transactions are then filtered at the preprocess stage to obtain
non-officer transactions which are considered as actual user
transactions. The preprocess results make a significant
difference with the average number of the most user
transactions, which indicates that the dominant use of
attendant cards at the first time the AFC entry-exit system is
applied. Filtering transactions based on users at this stage
influences the number of transactions obtained. The results
calculated by comparing between the processed data with the
total raw transaction as described in (1) show a significant
decrease in the number of transactions, with the number of
transactions of passengers who had OD pairs of 24% of the
total transactions. Furthermore, destination inference analysis
of the users is carried out at various levels, with the OD
matrix as a description of the results of the trip patterns
generated from the transaction.
B. Multilevel Analysis
The BRT in Jakarta has 14 corridors, showing 14 lanes
that are passed by the fleet. In destination inference analysis
at this level, the trip chaining is applied to determine the
pattern of passenger travel from one corridor to another.
 C. Travel Estimation Ability
In this section, the experimental analysis is done by comparing
the OD matrix estimation results at each level with the actual OD
matrix. Several preparations were made to obtain the results of
comparison estimation between levels. The 8-day transaction data
from 01 to 08 December 2017 is extracted until it gets the station's
position of boarding and alighting in each transaction. The
processed data is extracted in the form of a matrix at each level. The
matrix is then validated with the actual matrix which also passes the
preprocess in the same way to obtain the accuracy of the predicted
results. The user destination used to complete the OD matrix is
endogenously validated using the flag out data on the same
transaction. The purpose of validation is to test the validity of the
Fig. 6. Heatmap of Line Level Trip Chaining OD Matrix Sample destination estimation of each transaction at each level. Table II
shows the number of daily estimated transactions and the actual
There are sub corridors and stops on each of the lines of transaction data. The data shows the similarity of the number of
14 corridors available. A total of 60 sub-corridors with 242 transactions on actual and predictive results, both on the side of the
stops are available in this case. The generated OD matrix total transaction data and on the total number of OD matrices
described in Fig.6 provides an overview of the density of produced. The difference between the number of transaction data
users at each level. In OD matrix generation, different and OD matrix is generated because the calculated OD matrix does
processing is carried out at the bus stop compared to the level not calculate group transactions, namely transactions carried out by
of the corridor and sub-corridor in the case where origin and more than one person at a time adjacent using the same smart card.
destination have the same point. In the case of bus stops, the The same treatment is also done when the calculation of accuracy
transactions that have the same origin and destination are not between the two matrices is presented in Table III because group
considered, because these conditions indicate there is no transactions cause a bias in calculating the OD matrix. One case that
movement of the user's trip so that the analysis of the users’ causes bias is when users tap to enter and exit from a bus stop with
travel behavior cannot be carried out. This is different in the different amounts. The difficulty of giving value in the matrix will
case of corridors and sub-corridors that have different stops make a difference in the amount generated in the matrix, either the
even though they have the same origin and destination. Using predicted and the actual.
the assumptions applied, the average number of daily
transactions is obtained at all levels. TABLE II. PROCESSED TRANSACTION AND OD MATRIX
GENERATION
Fig. 7 shows the number of user frequencies that board
and alight at the same stop on the predicted OD matrix at the
Sum Sum Sum OD Sum OD
bus stop level. The daily error frequencies were calculated by Date
dividing the miscalculated count obtained from algorithm Truth Estimated Truth Predicted
implementation with the total transactions of the day. The 1 42,508 42,508 41,793 41,793
average of predictive errors of destination, in this case, is less
2 50,693 50,693 49,753 49,753
than 2%. The predictive errors shown in the same matrix
value at the origin and destination are caused by the 3 43,594 43,594 42,708 42,708
possibility of changes in user behavior that has not included 4 90,360 90,360 89,186 89,186
in the assumption of the trip chaining. It occurs due to the
behavior of passengers returning to the boarding stop on 5 90,464 90,464 89,441 89,441
previous trips using other modes of transportation, which 6 91,252 91,252 90,203 90,203
causes passengers on the next trip to depart at the same stop
with the previous bus stop. The assumption of the cause of 7 86,835 86,835 85,781 85,781
this behavior is that there are passengers who want to change 8 85,444 85,444 84,357 84,357
destinations on the next trip on a different route with the first
trip, thus relying on large stops to fulfill the case. The In terms of data usage for validation, researchers have
passengers depart from the nearest main bus station to the performed a variety of methods to verify the results by
destination stop on the first trip and return to the main stop to predicting the validated OD matrix data, which are divided
start the second trip. Another assumption is the possibility of into two main types:
users looking for empty buses on other lines for the same
a. Endogenous data, i.e. validation data obtained from
purpose. internal transportation systems, such as data on
transportation database systems, GPS data attached to
public transportation, mobile phone data for passenger,
or other internal systems.
b. Exogenous data, i.e. data from other external data on
the main system, such as data obtained from
Automated Passenger Count (APC), the volunteer
survey, and the interview.
The accuracy is calculated at each level by calculating the
average accuracy of the comparison matrix for daily transactions on
available data. Table III shows that the highest and the lowest
accuracy is obtained at the level of corridor and bus stations, which
Fig. 7. The frequency of predicted destination which has the same stop as concluded that the higher level of estimation carried out using the
origin at bus stop level

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assumed trip chaining offered, the higher accuracy is obtained.
Estimation at each of the higher levels is comparable to the wider
scope of the study.
TABLE III. CALCULATION ACCURACY AT EVERY LEVEL
Level of Estimation Accuracy
Corridor/Line 94%
Sub-Corridor 84%
Station 57%
VI. CONCLUSION
This study has two major contributions to the case of
Jakarta’s BRT. First, this study estimates destinations using
the assumption of trip chaining by filtering the actual users.
The estimation is carried out on entry-exit AFC of the
recording results of the tapping transaction data with entry
and exit status, by separating the exit data at the estimation
process. Second, this study validates the estimation results
using the AFC exit data as the actual data.
In terms of estimation, this study has identified the OD
matrix with filtering on the BRT smart card user at ID level.
User identification is performed by removing data anomalies,
i.e. transactions with an abnormal number, users who do not
have complete travel, and users ID that perform transactions
in groups, by looking at transaction data with the entry and
exit status that have contiguous intervals. Identification is
also performed by filtering user travel behavior by
eliminating single transactions, i.e. transactions that are
paired only once a day.
From validation results, OD matrix estimation has been
identified, by comparing the results with the OD matrix in
the complete transaction on each of the same users’ ID. The
results give the highest degree of accuracy at the level of the
corridor as much as 94%, which has concluded that the OD
matrix estimation will be higher when it is performed at the
higher level. The trip chaining estimation process and the
validation performed with the exit data in this case was
considered describe more about user’s travel behavior and
give more accurate results since it represents actual data
transactions at each user. This can not be performed in
previous studies since there was no exit data or other systems
which connect directly to user transactions.
The estimation and validation process in the BRT case
still require further investigation to consider the users’
behavior to dig deeper into the travel data, which cannot be
estimated to give fully enough information. The data that is
not estimated occurs due to many BRT passengers who do
not have a personal card, so they only rely on attendant cards
to tap in and out when entering and exiting bus stops.
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