Gwangju City Selects Priority Low-Floor Bus Replacement Targets Using Big Data Analysis

Gwangju Metropolitan City (Mayor Kang Gi-jung) will analyze big data to rationally and scientifically select priority replacement targets for low-floor buses considering disabled passengers.

According to Gwangju City on the 23rd, until now, when replacing aging regular buses, factors such as vehicle age (basic 9 years, extended by 2 years considering driving conditions, up to a maximum of 11 years), balancing the number of vehicles among city bus operators, budget procurement, and the financial conditions of transportation companies were considered.

The city decided to utilize data on routes frequently used by transportation-vulnerable groups such as the disabled as a basis for bus replacement.

To this end, Gwangju City extracted the top routes and bus numbers of regular buses frequently used by disabled passengers from city bus disabled passenger status data collected over the course of April.

They matched disabled passenger boarding data with whether each vehicle number was a low-floor bus, analyzing disabled passenger boarding by time and bus stop, and visualized the results.

As a result of the analysis, a total of 165 disabled passengers boarded on a specific route during April. Among them, 25 boarded near Namgwangju Station, 22 near Hwajeong Middle School, and 14 near Pungam-dong, identifying bus stops and bus numbers with a high number of disabled passengers.

Additionally, disabled passenger numbers were extracted by time on the same route. Around 6 a.m., 28 passengers (17%) used the service; around 1 p.m., 15 passengers (9.1%); around 2 p.m., 21 passengers (12.7%); and around 4 p.m., 19 passengers (11.5%) utilized the buses.

Other major routes were analyzed similarly to extract the priority replacement order for low-floor buses among regular buses, along with routes and bus numbers.

This is significant in that it established a low-floor bus replacement plan based on objective and scientific data by analyzing usage status such as bus routes, stops, and bus numbers frequently used by disabled passengers.

Gwangju City plans to support the use of data analysis results by sector, such as festivals and tourism, in policy formulation going forward.

Bae Il-kwon, Director of Planning and Coordination, said, “By listing and analyzing the overall flow of individualized data, we can scientifically confirm where Gwangju City’s policies are heading and what needs to be supplemented,” adding, “We will continue to establish policies based on scientific evidence.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.