Spotlight: Machine Learning in ITS

The Role of Artificial Intelligence in People Transportation – a recent article from our parent company, Modaxo – looks at how our industry deploys AI. One of the spotlight areas covered is Machine Learning in ITS, featuring a contribution from Nitesh Kumar Jha, Chief Technical Officer at Trapeze Group ITS and reproduced with kind permission below:

Bus arrival and journey time prediction accuracy is notoriously challenging due to the volume and complexity of factors involved. Nitesh Kumar Jha, Chief Technical Officer at Trapeze Group ITS explains: “Modern algorithms calculate departure times by combining schedule and historic data, which is accurate the vast majority of the time. But today many customers require near total accuracy, and in a complex modern urban environment this level of performance requires a different approach.”

Jha says that Trapeze’s new solution, currently being delivered into National Transport Authority for Ireland, includes Machine Learning algorithms trained to account for dynamic factors: “It allows us to factor in weather conditions, local congestion from mobile devices, live events, and traffic lights,” he explains. “This makes it possible to achieve the highest level of prediction accuracy.”

Looking beyond predictions, Jha sees great potential for AI to further transform bus operations: “ITS Systems will use AI to provide intervention recommendations based on current conditions, enabling Service Controllers to manage three times as many routes,” he says.

“These recommendations will be more efficient because they account for conditions across the entire network and any external factors influencing traffic behavior – this is something that human Controllers cannot do on their own.”

Read the full article here: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in People Transportation