Transforming Transit with High-Quality Data

Learn how transit agencies can evaluate and improve their data quality—in terms of accuracy, completeness, and accessibility—and use high-quality data to efficiently deliver transit service and improve the rider experience.

Transit agencies aim to efficiently deliver service and improve the rider experience. High-quality data is critical in meeting these goals, but many agencies simply can’t evaluate their own data quality or implement solutions to improve it.

Swiftly, Inc. is the leading Transit Data Platform used by 190+ agencies to improve their real-time passenger information, performance insights, and operations. We work with agencies to overcome data quality and challenges and produce real-time and historical data that passengers and staff can rely on.

The Three Dimensions of Transit Data Quality

• Data Accuracy: The degree to which transit data correctly reflects actual service, ensuring that information, such as vehicle locations, arrival/departure times, On-Time Performance (OTP), and predictions, matches real-world performance.
• Data Completeness: The extent to which all relevant transit data is captured, including both delivered and undelivered service, and whether service adjustments and disruptions are properly recorded and communicated to riders.
• Data Accessibility: The ease with which transit data can be retrieved, understood, and used by stakeholders, ensuring data is available for analysis, decision-making, and communication.

At Swiftly, data is at the core of everything we do, which is why we focus intently on measuring and enhancing data quality across these three dimensions.

Data Accuracy

Better Location Tracking

Good location tracking is key to high-quality transit data, yet most legacy systems rely on a single AVL source, updating only every 30+ seconds. Swiftly integrates multiple AVL feeds—including vehicle routers—delivering updates as fast as every 5 seconds for more precise tracking and richer historical data.

Redundant AVL sources also improve system resilience, preventing data loss from operator errors, equipment failures, or CAD/AVL outages, ensuring continuous real-time and historical visibility. As Tyler Means, AICP , the Chief Mobility & Strategy Officer, at KCATA said:

"During a recent cyber attack, we lost access to our CAD/AVL system and were completely blacked out. One of the great things that we have through Swiftly is that you pulled not only from our CAD/AVL but also from our Wi-Fi routers. So we have that redundancy. Swiftly was still pulling real-time information from the routers and still providing that to our riders. And we actually had our dispatch login on Swiftly so they can keep an eye on the fleet because there's no other way we could."

Improving Predictions

Agencies have typically struggled with understanding and improving the accuracy of real-time predictions provided to riders. To address this, Swiftly partnered with Transit to develop the ETA Accuracy Benchmark, an industry-standard methodology to measure the precision of real-time Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) predictions provided to riders. This allows agencies to evaluate their ETA accuracy, track improvements over time, and benchmark against peers.

Beyond Geofences

Legacy systems for measuring OTP often rely on geofences to determine stop arrivals and departures. However, geofences can be error-prone, leading to inaccurate data. For example, if a vehicle departs a stop but doesn’t immediately cross the geofence, then the recorded departure time may be incorrect. These inaccuracies not only distort OTP and running time data but also sow distrust in metrics. In contrast, Swiftly’s advanced algorithms, which analyze GPS data and historical patterns, produce more accurate arrival and departure estimates, resulting in more accurate OTP reporting, better schedules, and metrics that all stakeholders can rely on.

Michael Dylan Pal , the Chief Transportation Officer at Valley Metro RPTA , recently shared a post describing where he and Keolis, their private contract operator, used Swiftly to gain a common understanding of current OTP and to improve it from mid-70% to ~85%.

Data Completeness

Filling Assignment Gaps

Missing vehicle assignment data—often caused by operator errors, hardware issues, or data feed problems—can create gaps in real-time passenger information and historical performance data. Swiftly’s Auto-Assigner automatically matches unassigned vehicles to scheduled trips, ensuring real-time locations and actual arrival and departure times are accurately recorded, even when assignment data is incomplete. This enables agencies to collect 10–20% more historical data, enhancing passenger information and OTP reporting.

The Data Completeness Report

OTP is a key metric for transit agencies but fails to capture critical factors like ghost buses, uncommunicated service adjustments, and data gaps. Swiftly’s Data Completeness Report complements and expands on OTP by integrating service delivery and communication insights, helping agencies identify gaps, improve reliability, and enhance the rider experience.

Data Accessibility

Intuitive Web-Based Dashboards

Accessing performance data from legacy systems is often a challenge, with agencies limited to pre-set reports and/or needing complex access methods like VPNs. In contrast, agencies using Swiftly can easily access performance insights through a well-designed, intuitive web-based dashboard. With unlimited user logins, all departments—including operations, service planning and scheduling, customer service, and executives—can access the data, promoting transparency and better decision-making across the organization.

Data Access in Real-Time

Most legacy systems have a delay of three days or more in processing performance data, making it difficult for agencies to respond to service issues in a timely manner. In contrast, Swiftly provides real-time access to performance data, empowering agencies to monitor and adjust service as it happens. This proactive approach is essential for improving service reliability and the rider experience. As Michael Dylan Pal , Chief Transportation Officer at Valley Metro RPTA , noted:

“It’s nice to work in the present rather than 3-7 days in the past.”...“You can’t fix performance once the day is over. You have to actively manage and be proactive, not find out about problems three days later. Swiftly helps us do that.”

Unlocking Functionality with APIs

Swiftly further enhances accessibility by offering APIs that empower agencies and their partners to unlock additional functionality:

• Apps: Platforms like Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Transit can deliver accurate real-time vehicle locations, ETAs, and service alerts to riders. Transit also leverages Swiftly's GTFS Trip Modifications API to display detour shapes.
• Agency Staff: Agencies can integrate Swiftly data with other sources to create custom dashboards, such as combining operational and financial data in executive dashboards.
• Consultants: Swiftly data supports transit planning projects, including network redesigns and corridor studies.
• Vendors: Integrations powered by Swiftly data enhance agency operations, such as optimizing schedules using running time data and identifying and implementing Transit Signal Priority (TSP).

Swiftly is on track to process over 7.4 billion API calls per year, enabling powerful integrations with tools that benefit agencies and their riders.

Empowering Transit Agencies with High-Quality Data

With high-quality data, transit agencies can:

• Enhance Service Reliability: Accurately monitor vehicle locations, OTP, and service disruptions to reduce missed trips and improve schedule adherence.
• Improve Rider Communication: Provide reliable real-time passenger information, such as ETAs, service alerts, and detour updates, enhancing the rider experience.
• Optimize Operations: Identify inefficiencies, adjust schedules, and allocate resources effectively to reduce delays and improve service management.
• Track Performance: Measure service metrics like OTP and service delivery more accurately, enabling agencies to monitor trends and make data-driven adjustments.
• Support Strategic Planning: Use data insights for route planning, service expansions, and infrastructure investments based on actual performance trends.
• Increase Transparency and Accountability: Share clear, accurate data internally and with the public, promoting trust and collaboration among stakeholders.
• Enable Technology Integration: Leverage APIs and data platforms to power third-party apps and tools, and analytics dashboards for enhanced functionality.

In short: High-quality data helps transit agencies deliver better service, enhance the rider experience, and make smarter operational decisions.

If this topic resonates with your own experiences, make sure to register for our upcoming webinar: How Data Quality Impacts Service Reliability and the Rider Experience to hear firsthand from Tyler Means, AICP , Michael Dylan Pal , Lauren Grabowski , and me. If you have any questions for us, drop them in the comments, and we will try to respond during the live session!

Further reading:

• 3 Lessons from Hundreds of Data Therapy Sessions
• Accurate, actionable OTP reporting: New tools and best practices
• How on-target is that ETA, really? Now there’s a way to know
• Beyond On-Time Performance: Swiftly’s Data Completeness Report for Smarter Transit Insights