Thales clinches Transportation award at the Hong Kong Business International Business Awards 2017

The company used big data to remedy commuting woes.

Big data analytics is the future of operational efficiency targeting improved passenger experience, and Thales is bringing that to MTR Corporation Limited (MTRCL) through a project called “Train Occupancy & Platform Analytics for MTR Network”.

Almost 5 million people commute through the MTR railway system every day. Without the necessary information, the 11 line, 93 station train network could grind to a halt.

Thales’s big data analytics as a service aims at assessing the performance of the urban rail network by processing the data from the network to deliver every 15 minutes the number of passengers per train, per platform and per station. It provides MTR key performance indicators such as train occupancy, platform crowding, and waiting time or missed trains, enabling them to study plan and adapt the capacity of the lines and train services, ultimately giving riders a better commuting experience.

Thales is planning to further extend its big data platform to predictive capabilities through the addition of a machine learning platform.

With early adopters like MTRCL seeing practical and meaningful results, Thales is shaping up to be a pioneer not only in the transportation management sector, but also in the smart city domain worldwide.