Merging Transit Transfer Endpoints by Compatible Durations
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing transit journey planning systems face inefficiencies in representing and storing information about walking transfers between vehicle arrival and departure events, leading to increased complexity and reduced performance in determining optimal public transit routes.
Innovation Solution
A transit transfer network is constructed using a directed graph of transfer endpoints and arcs, where endpoints are merged based on compatible transfer durations, reducing the number of endpoints and improving efficiency by grouping compatible events and determining optimal transfer patterns.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If each vehicle departure and arrival event is assigned to a separate transfer endpoint, then the transfer network accurately represents all transit events, but the number of transfer endpoints increases significantly, reducing system performance
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple transfer endpoints that share common characteristics (same station, compatible transfer durations, overlapping time windows) into single consolidated endpoints. This reduces the total number of endpoints in the transfer network while preserving the essential transfer information, thereby improving system performance without sacrificing accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates transfer endpoints that can serve multiple functions by consolidating events that share common transfer patterns. A single endpoint can represent multiple vehicle events that have compatible transfer durations and time windows, making the endpoint universally applicable for various transfer scenarios and reducing redundancy.
2Loss of information
If the transit transfer network stores detailed information for each individual transfer event, then complete transfer information is available, but the network size and complexity increase, affecting processing efficiency
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple detailed transfer events into consolidated transfer representations within merged endpoints. By grouping events with compatible characteristics, the patent maintains the essential transfer information needed for journey planning while reducing the overall network complexity and size.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transforms the representation of transfer information by changing parameters such as consolidating time windows, merging station identifiers, and aggregating transfer duration ranges. This parameter transformation allows the network to store compressed yet complete transfer information, reducing complexity while maintaining information integrity.
3Productivity
If transfer endpoints are minimized by merging events, then system performance improves, but the complexity of determining compatibility between endpoints increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary compatibility assessments during the endpoint merging process itself. By evaluating compatibility criteria (transfer durations, time windows, station relationships) at the time of merging rather than later during query processing, the patent reduces the computational complexity of determining compatibility while achieving performance improvements.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent simplifies compatibility determination by transforming and standardizing parameters such as transfer duration ranges and time window representations. This parameter standardization enables more efficient compatibility checks during the merging process, reducing the complexity burden while maintaining accurate compatibility assessment.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer-implemented method of constructing a transit transfer network from transit data comprises processing transit data to define a plurality of transfer endpoints; determining a set of acceptable transfer durations for each of a plurality of transfers associated with the transfer endpoints; determining one or more groups of endpoints to be merged, each group comprising two or more endpoints, wherein transfers associated with the endpoints in each said group have one or more common acceptable transfer durations; and merging the endpoints in each group to form one or more merged endpoints.