ABSTRACT
A B S T R A C T Smart card transactions represent a passively collected source of information on passenger travel. With geographic coordinates and time stamps for these transactions, it is possible to infer the passenger’s origin and destination of a journey. In cases where only one transaction takes place at the origin stop during a journey or trip leg (a so-called “tap-on”), an alighting location must be inferred. This chapter reviews the common methods and assumptions guiding inference of destinations. To supplement this review, it considers methods that convert the origins and destinations from smart card transactions into estimates of origin-destination flows (O-D matrices). Such estimates may be complicated by the interpretation of the smart card data, particularly with respect to activities that might occur at transfer locations. Finally, this chapter explores other methods employed to look at patterns in O-D journeys and in passenger tours throughout a day. Several avenues for continuing research in these areas are highlighted.
