Disruption in Large Transit Systems

Jon Reades and myself gave a talk at ECCS on how we are using our Oyster Card data to simulate disruptions to the London tube system. Added Richard Milton’s real time tube and bus data and presented our ideas at IFISC in Palma on 11th October. They made a nice show of this and if you click here you will get the online video which tells you much more about our project that I can tell you here.

Basically our project uses 6 months of RFID smart card like data where people use the tube and overground rail systems in London by swiping in and swiping out of stations thus making a journey from which the cost is deducted from the card. We have great flow data and we are able to examine several ways of disrupting the network – in turn disrupting the flows by closing stations and then figuring out what the impact if on other stations in the netowkr. We are searching really for locations – stations – which are particularly vulnerable to such disruptions which might be physical attacks like 7/7, train breakdowns, strikes on the line and so on. There is a lot to model in such problems and this post gives you some sense of how we are beginning to approach the project. Watch the powerpoint above or download the pdf by clicking here. Coming soon that is.