How AI transforms transit planning in data-scarce cities

Thank you Satish Ukkusuri for the detailed presentation about Leveraging AI for Transit Planning: From Data Scarcity to Actionable Insights. Traditional transit planning methods (household surveys, manual counts, and ridership records) are increasingly insufficient for understanding complex mobility patterns, particularly in data-scarce environments. This presentation demonstrates how artificial intelligence and passive big data sources can transform transit planning practice, offering unprecedented insights into travel behavior, system performance, and resilience. Drawing from applied work across cities from four continents, including Indianapolis, Delhi, Chennai, Mexico City, and West African capitals, we present a comprehensive AI analytics toolkit using mobile phone location data. The methodology enables extraction of multimodal origin-destination matrices, transit stop utilization patterns, and route-level demand forecasting at granular spatial and temporal scales. We conclude by examining implementation challenges: algorithmic interpretability, data bias mitigation, and the critical gap between analytical capability and policy integration. As agencies confront demands for greater sustainability, these AI-driven tools offer transformative potential when thoughtfully deployed. ITE—A Community of Transportation Professionals ITE Great Lakes District Lyles School of Civil and Construction Engineering at Purdue

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