A Use of Cellular Network Records to Sense the Impact of Urban Transit Systems Comfort on Users Route Choices

This paper shows that conditions in which a cellular network is operated around an underground transit system can make it behave as a trip sensor. With the help of the mobile network operator Orange, an experiment has been conducted in the Paris´ underground transit system. With the help of STIF, the transport authority in Paris metropolitan area, trips measurement computed from cellular data have been compared to those computed from Automated Fare Collection data. Thus, many applications to transportation research could arise; estimating dynamics such as Origin-Destination flows or sense qualitative concepts such as comfort perceived by users. Then, trip measurement can be seen as foundation to establish a correlation of users´ route choice patterns and users´ perception of the transit system.