Vanderbilt researcher optimizing public transit with Artificial Intelligence

The project has two main goals: to analyze available bus occupancy data to allow passengers and drivers to maintain a healthy social distance and to understand the changes in overall demand for public transit in each city. Working with bus occupancy data the researchers intend to create a real-time map of available seats within social distancing protocols available for public use. Dubey likens the map to that of how seats are selected on ticket sales websites for concerts or sporting events. The researchers posit that they will further be able to use their algorithm that digests occupancy data to estimate usage and seating patterns. These estimates will be used to make recommendations to WeGo Public Transit and CARTA on the number of buses that need to be added to specific routes to ensure passenger safety.