Interim update on the development of system to revise bus route schedules as part of trial in Kitakyushu City

Published on:
January 28, 2022

On January 25, 2022, SWAT Mobility held an interim update session for the "Startup SDGs Innovation Trial Project" by Kitakyushu City (sponsored by SWAT Mobility Japan, and co-sponsored by the Kitakyushu City Transportation Bureau, Kitakyushu City, and the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO)), to report on the development of our system that is proposing revisions to public bus route schedules to bus operators nationwide. The session was conducted in ATOMica Kitakyushu (Kokurakita-ku, Kitakyushu City) with over 150 participants from transportation companies and local governments across Japan.  

 Sample Analysis:

In this trial, SWAT Mobility has been working on a system to reduce the man-hours spent on the revision of the Kitakyushu Municipal Bus schedules, using our experience and technology that we have refined through operating on-demand bus services. Up until now, the Kitakyushu City Transportation Bureau has been manually analysing the boarding and alighting data of public buses in the city. 

Currently, SWAT Mobility’s analysis of the usage data has revealed issues that were previously unknown. As part of the analysis, we visualized and analyzed the distribution of bus stops usage, the number of passengers, operation intervals, etc, from a large amount of data. We also simulated the differences in CO2 emissions between buses and personal cars and reiterated that buses are an eco-friendly mode of transportation.

In the future, we will use our powerful routing algorithm in our work on developing a system that can support the revision of bus route schedules, which can be used by the Kitakyushu City Transportation Bureau, bus operators, and other local governments operating public buses throughout Japan.

* For inquiries regarding this trial, please reach out to us.