Nigel Wilson relies on the London Underground Oyster card, but not for his daily commute. Wilson uses data from transit fare cards to research and improve transit services in London. Wilson, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, was at Volpe, The National Transportation Systems Center, to participate in a Straight from the Source talk about automated data collection systems like the Oyster card, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority CharlieCard, and Hong Kong Octopus Card to improve public transit performance.
Wilson examines data collected by a variety of automated systems to understand passenger movements. The process requires creative use of data from systems that were not created for the purpose of counting passenger trips or the time a person spends waiting for a transit vehicle.
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