Neural network model for predicting passenger congestion to optimize traffic management for urban public transport

The development of public transport in cities is an effective way to reduce “congestion” in the road network and, as a result, increase the speed of passenger transportation. Improving the quality of urban bus services helps attract more passengers. Bus intervals are calculated once for each route line individually, based on the average congestion of passengers at the stops. In turn, the sudden accumulation of a large number of passengers at bus stops causes that not all passengers can move in a timely manner, which causes concern for passengers. This is one of the factors that reduces the quality of passenger transport services. The aim of the study is to develop a model for predicting the congestion of passengers at bus stops to optimize traffic management of urban public transport. Materials and methods. This article presents a neural network model for predicting passenger congestion at bus stops. It takes into account the spatio-temporal characteristics of bus traffic. Results. The developed model for predicting passenger congestion at bus stops was tested on real data from bus route 3 (Dushanbe, Tajikistan). The model made it possible to predict passenger traffic (the number of passengers at bus stops) with an accuracy of 72% to 74.5% of the actual number of passengers at bus stops. Conclusion. The proposed method, in contrast to other methods, allows you to automatically adapt the forecasting model to the changing conditions of the route line. This method is universal and can be used for other route lines (bus stops). It does not require much time to reconfigure.