Analyzing stops for better public transport

To ensure that public transport meets market demand as closely as possible, it’s important to know how accessible the existing stops are. How many people live or work in the vicinity of a stop? How long does it take them to get to the stop? Knowledge center CROW advises public service providers and asked Geodan to analyze all 49,000 public transport stops in the Netherlands.

CROW knows how long people are willing to travel to a stop - by car, by bike and on foot. On that basis, Geodan calculated the service area for each stop: the surrounding area that can be reached within that time. To do so, we used our own, highly-accurate pedestrian, bicycle, and car network. Next, we determined how many people live and work within the service area of each stop, which quickly gives an indication of how useful the various stops are in reality. Using a viewer, Geodan then plots this information on a map. In addition, we compare the actual journey time with the beeline distance that could be traversed within that time in a particular service area. The smaller the difference, the fewer barriers the infrastructure in that area has.

CROW integrated the data and viewer developed by Geodan in their Door-to-Door Dashboard, which they use to monitor the quality of the public transport chain. Stakeholders then use this information to optimize public transport by removing redundant stops, removing barriers in the infrastructure, or moving the stop, for instance. Geodan is now working on an update of the analyses and is looking to add data about the waiting time and the frequency with which trains, buses and trams stop at the stops, providing insight into how well a stop serves a specific area.