5 th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science, Palma (Balearic Islands, Spain) April 25th-27 th 2002

Extending bus line representation for transport applications

Zhengdong Huang; Masser Ian
hzhd@itc.nl masser@itc.nl
Division Urban Planning and Management, ITC
P.O. Box 6, 7500 AA Enschede, The Netherlands

Introduction
Urban transport planning models require large variety of data at different levels and scales and from different
agencies. The lack of consistency, compatibility, and comprehensiveness in data structures has necessitated
transport data integration. Information science, specifically GIS technology, has facilitated the integration of data
for transport analysis. For effective and efficient data utilization, data has to be cross-referenced in terms of
geographical location and time frame. Transport analysis concerns with socio-economic, physical, operational,
and impact data, which link to such spatial entities as sites, streets and zones.
Public transport concerns with many tasks ranging from policy, planning, operation and evaluation. Bus stops
and bus routes are among those data needed by both transport planners and operational managers. Transit
demand modeling has to rely on the transit stop, segment and route to integrate data from different sources so
that the level of detail is suitable to the modeling purpose (Peng and Dueker, 1995). A passenger information
system in an Advanced Public Transport System (APTS) incorporates data on routes, fares, schedules and other
dynamic data into one cohesive database for such applications as pre-trip planning and in-vehicle information
provision (Casey et al, 2000). More detailed representation of stops and routes is needed for integrating public
transport data.
This paper deals with the detailed representation of bus lines and stops in GIS. The need for the detail
representation is justified by illustrating the situation in a heavily bus oriented city. Based on database and
dynamic segmentation, existing transit data model is extended to allow directional representation of bus lines
and exact location of individual bus stops. The linkage between routes, stops and urban streets is maintained in
the data model, which may provide better integration of such transport data as socio-economic activities, bus
schedule, transit survey and trip guidance. Examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of applying the
model in transport analysis.

Representation issues on bus line and stops

The spatial representation of transit stops and routes may apply two basic methods, i.e. independent and
dependent. The independent method is to explicitly record the geographic locations of stops and routes by
ground survey, using the same coordinate system as in the street network. The dependent method identifies stops
and routes with reference to base street networks, without getting geographic coordinates directly. According to
their spatial characteristics, bus routes are better represented with dependent method, while bus stops can be
properly represented by both methods.
As the street network has been widely accepted as a basis for the transport enterprise, it is appropriate to make
use of the network for referencing transit routes. In spatial information science, linear referencing and dynamic
segmentation have been utilized for referencing point or linear objects on base networks (Dueker & Vrana, 1992;
ESRI, 2001). The fundamental characteristic of the schemes is that the underlying network is not affected by
changing various route systems attached to it. Choi and Jang (2000) have illustrated a scheme of generating
transit network from a street map database for transit demand modeling. With GIS spatial analysis and dynamic
segmentation, transit stops and routes are built, independently, with reference to existing street database. The
issue of more detailed representation is not tackled.
Currently all route representation schemes take one route for both directions. This is true for most cases, but with
exceptions. A bus line may have two different routes between its terminals. The spatial layout of routes and stops
is of great importance for pre-trip planning in which searching for transfers is necessary. This requirement is in
line with that of lane representation as a part of Intelligent Transport System (ITS). For ITS applications, the
lanes on a street must be represented in the database and vehicles have to be tracked at the lane level of detail
(Goodchild, 2000). The representation of transit lines in two directions will reflect the reality and give better
guidance to transit passengers for their pre-trip route searching.
In a transit-oriented city, the following features need to be considered in representing bus stops and routes:
- Transit networks have to be defined with reference to base street networks
- Bus stops have to be represented on both sides of the street

1
 5 th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science, Palma (Balearic Islands, Spain) April 25th-27 th 2002

- A bus stop may have more than one spatial locations (sometimes has to be simplified)
- A bus line may take different routes in two directions
- A bus line may change its route by ignoring some stops at peak hours

The representation model in GIS

Locating bus stops
In large transit-oriented cities a stop may have take several spatial sites, each serves for one or more bus routes.
A typical case is that a stop is usually located on both sides of a street, of which both sites are with the same stop
name. When many bus lines are available, more complicated cases exist around street intersections and even
along a street. In transit planning and operational service, the spatial variations of the same stop (with one stop
name) have to be represented to give enough details for the applications. Under this situation, the stop name
cannot be used as unique identifiers, and a separate set of unique ID has to be assigned. For a two-way stop, it is
actually two stops located on both sides of a street, and each one will get a unique ID. The attributes of a stop
table could be like this,
{Stop_ID, Stop_Name, …}

In building a stop database three methods are available. The first is that stops are directly digitized or surveyed
as coordinates, and kept in a separate spatial database. This is the independent way. The second method is,
instead of directly acquiring coordinates, to express locations as percentage along street centerlines. This is a
dependent method and is generally referred to as linear location referencing. The third method is also a
dependent one, but with reference to bus route. This is referred to as point event along routes with the technique
of dynamic segmentation. For practical usage, it is appropriate to keep all the three definitions. If a selection has
to be made, the first one should be taken, as it is more straightforward and can generate the other two definitions
in a later stage.
Constructing bus routes
Making use of dynamic segmentation in GIS, bus routes can be depicted with reference to street networks. A
route is composed of inter-connected sections that are defined by relative positions along street segments. The
positions are measures along the segments, which are stored in a designated attribute table or section table. That
is to say, a route is defined by measurements along street segments instead of by directly recording coordinates.
Although a bus line operates in two adverse directions, it is usually represented with a single and non-directional
route in transport planning and also in computer databases. However, a directional representation of bus lines in
a detailed level may generate clearer topology among bus routes that is quite useful in passenger route planning.
More importantly, it is not infrequent that a bus line operates different routes in its two directions, and it may
also happen that a line changes its route for different time period of the day. In the mean time, the representation
of stops on both sides of street centerlines has echoed the need for the directional bus route representation.
In order to represent the counter directional routes of a bus line, a separate attribute identifying the direction of
the route should be added to the bus line number. A combination of line number and directional code uniquely
determines a route, e.g. “220” and “221” represent bus line 22 to direction “0” and “1” respectively. A typical
route and stop table contains data on route number, line number, direction, stop ID, and stop sequential number.
The operational details of the route such as schedule and distance can be added to the table on demand.
Integration with street networks
To demonstrate the design scheme, a test bus network has been constructed in Arc/Info, using dynamic
segmentation concept. The data on bus lines, bus stops and road network is based on Wuhan, China. Arc/Info
maintains internal link between routes and base streets (arcs) by defining route sections, which contain
measurements on street segments, as well as along bus routes. In this framework, while this convention is kept,
additional location is identified in reference to street segments. The attribute tables of these spatial entities and
their linkages are shown in Figure 1. The internal links in the framework indicate available links within Arc/Info,
and the user links have to be constructed in a structured way by users. The linkage of stops to street segments
can be built up by spatial search or interactive user input with the help of a designated program. The linkage to
bus routes can be set with event tables using dynamic segmentation.

Route-Stop Routes Route Sections Arc/Street Stops

BUS_ID NAME ROUTELINK# FNODE# STOP_ID

2
 5 th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science, Palma (Balearic Islands, Spain) April 25th-27 th 2002

STOP_ID BUS# ARCLINK# TNODE# STOP_NAME

RT_LOC BUS-ID F-MEAS LPOLY# STREET-ID
DIR T-MEAS RPOLY# ST_LOC
BUSNR F-POS LENGTH OFFSET
Internal link LENGTH T-POS STREET#
BUS# STREET-ID
User link BUS-ID ST-NAME

Figure 1. Framework of linking bus stops, bus routes and street network
In transport planning and service management, different applications require different level of detail in data
representation. The long-range transport planning works at a strategic level and needs only simplified network
representation. Trip planning and traveling guidance necessitate more detailed representation. The advantage of
the scheme in this study is that the transit network can be easily generated or extracted from the detailed
definition to fulfill the needs of applications at different levels. The generation from the detail representations to
a higher level can be fulfilled by simplifying representations of routes and stops. A bus line may be acquired by
choosing one of its two directional routes, and a general bus stop may take any detailed stop locations with the
same name.

Applications in public transport

Getting bus volume on each street segment. The defining of bus routes with nominal reference to street segments
makes it practical to identify bus traffic volume on each street segment. The linkage between a route and its
underlying street segment is maintained in the route definition. When examining a route, all the street segments
it passes through can be identified. On the other hand, identifying a street segment also implies the availability of
all routes going through.
Connecting TAZ and bus lines. In aggregate transport modeling, when the traffic distribution is calculated and
traffic mode is split, the demand for bus lines between each pair of zones can be acquired. The existing
operational bus lines can be used to evaluate this demand. Similar to the previous case on street segment, there
should be an indication on how many bus lines exist between each TAZ pairs. In spatial database, bus routes are
linear features, and TAZs are polygons. A line-in-polygon operation will generate information on which routes
pass through the polygons.
Evaluating bus services. The evaluation of bus services requires information on bus operation and the servicing
area as a whole in a city. The length of bus routes can be retrieved from the route definition. For example, a
search for bus routes that passing through one street segment in Wuhan reveals an average route length of 17.6
kilometers, a figure well above the national standard. With the information on route length and relevant data,
some other variables can be estimated. One case is the Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) that is generally used in
transport evaluation. As most bus schedule is fixed during given period of time, the VMT for each bus in a day is
acquired by multiply its route length in two directions with its number of runs. By accumulating the value, the
VMT for all buses in a city can be estimated.
Integrating data from public transport survey. When the spatial itineraries of the directional routes are available,
the survey results can be attached to GIS for spatial visualization and analysis. This method may enhance
traditional data processing of survey data, and get new insights on spatial characteristics of the public transport
system. In this kind of processing, data in two directions makes big difference especially in peak hours.
Therefore, the directional representation scheme is necessary and will benefit the data processing.
Finding optimal trip route and transfer. The searching for optimal path may make use of any appropriate
algorithms. After a path is found, the street segments along the path are recorded sequentially in a table. From
the table the path direction on each segment can be identified by citing its end nodes as from-node and to-node.
This link direction is used to find those directional bus routes that run through the segment, which is based on
the internal linkage between bus routes and street segments. In a transit-oriented city, each street segment on an
optimal path may associate with more than one bus route. When putting all the routes together in a sequencial
order, the plan for bus riding can be made and transfer points are decided. usually the plan will also result in
more than one senario if more than one bus routes are available on the path. In addtion to the route number, the
system may explain further which individual stop to take in a transfer. This process will make use of the route-
stop table and stop locations on the map, which may give detail descriptions on where to find the stop for the
next route.

References
Casey, R. F., L. N. Labell, et al. (2000) Advanced Public Transportation Systems: The State of the Art Update 2000. Final
report. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, USA.

3
 5 th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science, Palma (Balearic Islands, Spain) April 25th-27 th 2002

Choi, K. and W. Jang (2000). Development of a transit network from a street map database with spatial analysis and dynamic
segmentation. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies. 8.
Dueker, K. and R. Vrana (1992) Dynamic segmentation revisited: a milepoint linear data model. URISA Journal. Vol. 4(2).
ESRI (2001) Linear Referencing and Dynamic Segmentation in ArcGIS 8.1 - An ESRI White Paper.
Goodchild, M. F. (2000). GIS and transportation: status and challenges. GeoInformatica 4(2).
Peng, Z. R. and K. Dueker (1995) Spatial data integration in route-level transit demand modeling. URISA Journal 7(1).