Ms Liyuan Gong, Deputy Director of Transport Research Centre, City of Jinan, offered a seminar on “Big Data & Innovative Public Transport in Jinan” at the ERTICO premises. It was organised within the framework of “Engaging Cities” activities of the Viajeo Plus Project from 25th September to 22nd October.
At the seminar, Ms Gong introduced best practices related to innovative public transport and big data usage that she has experienced in the region of Jinan to ERTICO technical experts. The discussions focused on future cooperation, such as what kind of good practices can be shared between European and Chinese stakeholders and how to facilitate knowledge transfer on sustainable transport.
Jinan, the capital city of Shandon Province, has 7 million habitats. As in all major cities in China, Jinan has been suffering from huge traffic congestion and air pollutions due to the rapid increase in car ownership (approximately 20% in the past decade).
Due to its unique geographic characteristics, Jinan is famous for its rich underground spring water. However, this has turned to be a two-edged sword. One of the backdraws is that it is not possible to build metro, trams or any kind of urban railways. Its transport solutions heavily rely on conventional bus and trolley bus services.
In recent years, the city has started to offer custom bus, a type of demand-response public transport, to fill in the gaps between public transport and private car usage. Thanks to this new system, travellers can book and pay his/her journey through a smart phone app.
Using big data for city and public transport planning has been widely used in China. In Jinan, the cell data from mobile phones have been used to generate Origin-Destination (O-D) metrics and to analyse the gap existing between public transport services and travel demand. Such data is extremely valuable for the transport planners to improve the quality of public transport services, making it a more convenient and atractive option for city dwelers.
