Citation

Alessandretti L, Karsai M, Gauvin L. R. Soc. Open Sci. 2016; 3(7): e160156.

Affiliation

Université de Lyon, ENS de Lyon, LIP, INRIA-CNRS-UMR 5668, IXXI, 69364 Lyon, France; Data Science Lab, ISI Foundation, Turin, Italy.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Royal Society Publishing)

DOI

10.1098/rsos.160156

PMID

27493773

PMCID

PMC4968465

Abstract

Multimodal transportation systems, with several coexisting services like bus, tram and metro, can be represented as time-resolved multilayer networks where the different transportation modes connecting the same set of nodes are associated with distinct network layers. Their quantitative description became possible recently due to openly accessible datasets describing the geo-localized transportation dynamics of large urban areas. Advancements call for novel analytics, which combines earlier established methods and exploits the inherent complexity of the data. Here, we provide a novel user-based representation of public transportation systems, which combines representations, accounting for the presence of multiple lines and reducing the effect of spatial embeddedness, while considering the total travel time, its variability across the schedule, and taking into account the number of transfers necessary. After the adjustment of earlier techniques to the novel representation framework, we analyse the public transportation systems of several French municipal areas and identify hidden patterns of privileged connections. Furthermore, we study their efficiency as compared to the commuting flow. The proposed representation could help to enhance resilience of local transportation systems to provide better design policies for future developments.

Language: en