Natural disasters, serious traffic or industrial accidents and other unforeseen events can lead to major disruptions in urban and regional public transport infrastructure and operations. Efficient operations control of public transport is essential for retaining public mobility and recovering from an exceptional situation. This paper sketches out the concept of a supporting information system for optimised public transport management in exceptional situations. The article analyses the demand for such a system, studies requirements and discusses its feasibility. The range of data required for optimised public transport management in exceptional situations is explained and compared to the information delivered by presently used IT systems for public transport management. The resulting gap can not be adequately filled by manual data acquisition. This is the basis for the proposed concept of a dedicated information system for public transport operations support in exceptional situations. The basic structure integrates existing IT systems with external data sources and requires a data integration component and a user interface for directors of operations as new components. The research is still in a conceptual phase and the feasibility of the proposed system has not been proven yet. However, results of a data analysis, a portion of the required conceptual database design and a demonstrator program are presented as first steps towards an exemplary implementation for the Dresden region in Germany. (Author/publisher)
Abstract