Through the Bus Driver's Eye: Linking Operational Data and Driver Perspectives to Bus Services Monitoring and Planning

November 25, 2025

Bus transit services are essential to urban mobility, yet in many cities they are perceived as unreliable and inefficient. This thesis focuses on this problem, trying to understand it from a perspective that has received little attention by the literature: through the bus drivers' eyes. The research explores how drivers' tacit insights can complement explicit operational data to enhance network monitoring and planning. Semi-structured interviews with controllers from different cities provided an overview of the state-of-the-practice, followed by a case study of Lisbon's bus operator, Carris. A focus group with eight bus drivers revealed their perceptions on performance, factors impacting it and improvement opportunities. Thematic and ranking analyses were conducted to identify their priorities and awareness across operational, tactical, and strategic planning dimensions. In parallel, more than 270,000 operational messages and 32 million events from Carris' operating assistance system were analysed using text mining and spatial aggregation, and their interrelations examined to contextualize drivers' observations and identify recurrent operational patterns. Results demonstrate that this methodology can improve communication efficiency in operational monitoring. Also, it shows that drivers hold valuable knowledge about systemic inefficiencies (such as unrealistic schedules, inadequate infrastructure or ineffective communication systems) that align with operational data patterns. The study concludes that integrating drivers' feedback and field observations can strengthen and inform monitoring and planning decisions. It advocates for a participatory framework where human and technological resources complement each other, bridging the gap between quantitative monitoring and qualitative operational understanding.

Authors in the community:

• 

  G

  Gonçalo Matos

  ist1108284

Supervisors of this institution:

• 

  R

  Rosa Melo Félix

  ist155593

• 

  F

  Filipe Manuel Mercier Vilaça e Moura

  ist14188

civil-engineering - Civil engineering

por - Portuguese

Instituto Superior Técnico