The Future of Passenger Information in Public Transportation

Recently, large amounts of data on passenger behavior have become available to operators. The availability of this data provides many new opportunities: from agent based modelling to behavioral modeling to process analysis. This Colloquium has invited several experts from academia and practice to give their view on the future of passenger information in public transportation.

• This research colloquium is followed by the public defense "Passengers, Information, and Disruptions"

Please register so that sufficient lunch can be ordered for all participants by sending an email to schmidt2@rsm.nl. This event has a limited capacity. In time registration ensures your participation.

Biographies:

Prof. Kai Nagel
Prof. Kai Nagel is professor of Planning of Transport Systems and Transport Telematics at the Berlin Institute of Technology (TU Berlin). He holds masters degrees in Physics and Oceanology/Meteorology, and he obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1994. He is one of the front runners in the area of large scale multiagent traffic flow simulations and in multi-agent travel behavior. Prof. Nagel is section editor for “Traffic and Environment” of the journal “Advances of Complex Systems”. His current research includes the adaptation of MATSIM, an agentbased simulation model that was originally developed for large scale car traffic simulations, to public transport environments. He will present recent research on using MatSim for modelling, analyzing and scheduling public transportation systems. 

Prof. Otto Anker Nielsen
Prof. Otto Anker Nielsen is professor at DTU Transport, Technical University of Denmark. He is an expert in passenger modeling. He has been a leading contributor to research in route choice models and large scale transport models. He is leading the new project ‘Intergrated Public Transport Optimization and Planning’ as well as the development of the European Transtools Transport Model, and is involved in the development of the Danish National Model and the Copenhagen Actum Activity-based model.

Prof Nigel Wilson (TBC)
Professor Nigel Wilson, director of the MIT Transit Research Program, has more than 30 years experience dealing with operations, management and planning issues associated with transit systems worldwide. His research and teaching focus on urban public transportation, including topics related to the operation, analysis, planning and management of transit systems. Specific research activities he has directed include using automated data systems to improve planning and operations, workforce planning in the transit industry, short-range transit planning methods, the role of private operators in public transportation and the potential for computers and communication systems to improve the performance of transit systems. During two leaves from MIT, he worked directly in three large transit agencies, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (1985-86), London Transport (1992-93) and Metro Transit (2008-2009) and has also consulted to a number of other North American transit authorities.

Netherlands Railways (NS)
Netherlands Railways is the largest passenger railway operator in the Netherlands. The introduction of the OV-chipkaart provides data on passenger demand that was never before available at this combined scale and detailed level. During this talk representative of NS will provide insight into how this data has changed (some) of their daily practices, and which challenges and opportunities lay ahead.