Kobe City: First in Japan! Bus usage status is visible!

Press Release (April 17, 2023)
Management Planning Division, Kobe City Transportation Bureau
Since March 2021, Kobe City Buses have been able to accurately track the number of passengers boarding and alighting at each bus stop by having passengers touch their IC card reader twice, once when boarding and once when alighting, when using their IC card. This has made it possible to accurately determine the number of passengers getting on and off the bus at each stop.
Utilizing the boarding and alighting data obtained from this two-touch IC card system, we have launched “mieruka,” a Kobe City Bus Usage Data Site that shows the boarding status of passengers between stops on each city bus service (average number of passengers on a given section) and the number of passengers getting on and off the bus at each stop. This is the first time in Japan that data of this scale has been made public.
The “mieruka” site can be easily accessed via smartphones or PCs, and allows users to easily search by bus line or bus stop. The system can be used for a wide range of purposes, including as a tool for more comfortable use of city buses in the face of the lowering of the status of the new coronavirus from Category 2 to Category 5 under the Infectious Disease Control Law and the removal of restrictions on activities, as well as for marketing purposes at companies and other organizations. The “City Bus” system can be used for a wide range of purposes, including as a tool for more comfortable use of city buses and for marketing purposes at companies, etc.

1. Publicly available data

1) City bus usage
Average number of passengers per quarter
*Data from April to June, July to September, and October to December 2022
*Data per city bus service
*Number of passengers corrected by IC rate by system (to be updated as needed)
2) Bus stop usage
Number of passengers per bus stop per quarter
*Data from April to June and July to September 2022
～Data from April to June, July to September, and October to December, 2022
*Number of passengers and breakdown by bus line every 3 hours

2

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A video explaining how to operate the system is available on YouTube so that anyone can use it.
You can access it from the Kobe City website.

4. Examples of “mieruka” applications

・Buses can show how crowded they are, which can be used as a guide for staggered work schedules (e.g., flexi-time), making it more comfortable to use the city buses.
Pregnant women and people with baby strollers can also check the estimated bus congestion.
The number of passengers at each bus stop can be used for market research and city revitalization.