Processing collected survey data

Passenger surveys - interviews and counts - are essential for public transport supply planning. Usually the passenger’s route within the PuT line network is not described completely by interview data. This applies especially to passengers who have to transfer several times or those who need to walk for transfers.

Survey personnel usually count the passengers boarding the surveyed line at the boarding stop and ask for the following details of the trip:

  • Boarding stop of passenger trip where passenger enters the survey line, which means where the passenger is interviewed by the survey personnel,
  • Alighting stop of passenger trip where passenger will leave the survey line,
  • Origin and destination of the passenger trip.

After reading passenger data from file, it has to be verified and completed, if necessary. Also the time of departure from either the boarding stop or the origin terminal of the survey line have to be recorded in a questionnaire.

Electronic ticket data can be retrieved from the IT systems by the PuT operator. This data is extremely useful for a transport model. Access to stops or, depending on the system, also to vehicles is granted to the user by means of a chip card. When entering the system (check in), at least the location and time of the card used is stored. Leaving the system (check out) is also possible only with the card. Fares are determined later from the resulting relations and/or times. If the access control takes place in the vehicle, details of the line used or even the trip can be stored if necessary.

The sample of this collected data is usually much higher than a temporary passenger survey. Efficient processing of these large volumes of data is necessary.

The collected data, whether from passenger surveys or from systems with access controls to transport systems or vehicles, can be processed by the PuT passenger survey module.

The Visum add-on Passenger onboard survey contains the following basic functions.

  • Reading survey data

Loading data from file and conversion of data records into PuT paths (User Manual: Loading survey data).

Note: From each data record (which means per questionnaire or per ticket), a passenger trip is generated and stored as PuT path.

  • Checking the plausibility of survey data

Verification and completion of the survey data records, which contain the basic passenger trip data (Plausibilization of survey data).

  • Direct assignment

Assignment of the data records (calculating network volumes from path volumes), optionally OD matrices and skim matrices can be generated (Survey data assignment).

Note: Subsequently, skims on path level (by data record) are automatically provided in the PuT paths list.

After direct assignment of the survey data, the full range of the Visum functionality for analysis and display of results is available, e.g. flow bundle display (Interactive analyses) or PuT operating indicators (PuT operating indicators).

Note: In the directory C:\Users\Public\Documents\PTV Vision\PTV Visum 2022/Examples, you can find an example of use on this topic. The PuT Survey Module example shows the use of the Passenger onboard survey module. This module allows you to determine demand based on survey data and e-ticketing systems.