Using smart card and GPS data for policy and planning: The case of Transantiago

We describe a successful experience of collaboration between academia and the public transport authority to develop tools based on passive data processing. We include a brief description of the Transantiago system and the agreements made to develop the aforementioned tools. We also describe the methods developed to obtain valuable information like public transport trips origin-destination matrices, speed profiles of buses and service quality indicators, among others. Several examples of specific uses of the information for public transport policy and planning in Santiago are presented. The paper concludes with a discussion of what else can be obtained from this data and why we believe that this can change the way we do transport planning.