A smartphone based DSS platform for assessing transit service attributes

This paper presents a methodology for determining public transportation quality attributes, based on a decision support system (DSS). The platform, once set up, combines the capability of geographic information systems (GIS) to analyze spatial attributes and the smartphone mobile technology, which is a ‘‘smart’’ solution to collect dynamically bus locations and their cinematic variables. The DSS has been applied to a real case study in order to test its reliability. The results highlight a good flexibility of the platform combined with a good level of scalability and interoperability of the system that can be applied in any context. Moreover, the high penetration rate of smartphones among users and the system capability of disaggregating data in both space and time, makes the DSS useful to identify operational problems and take appropriate actions with a non-intrusive approach.