To analyze inherent and diverse patterns within line-based public transport daily delay occurrences, we introduce a data-driven exploratory analysis focused on the spatial-temporal distribution of these delays. Our approach relies on the utilization of the image pattern recognition technique and k-means clustering algorithm. We extract daily punctuality information from the automatic vehicle location data for a singular public transport route. This information is then translated into a visual representation through aggregated daily delay distribution profile images, offering insights into the spatial and temporal distribution of delays. The delay distribution finds expression in the arrangement of pixels within these profile images. The essence of these images is further distilled through image pattern recognition using the neural network architecture of ResNet50. Employing the k-means algorithm, we cluster these images based on their similarity, revealing five distinct daily delay patterns. The analysis of these patterns offers insight into their unique characteristics, yielding noteworthy outcomes. These findings hold the potential to provide public transport operators with an enriched comprehension of the dynamics of delays occurring on a specific line.@en

To analyze latent multiple specific patterns in the line-based public transport daily delay occurrence, a data-driven explorative analysis of public transport daily delay spatial-temporal distribution pattern is performed based on the k-means clustering algorithm. Firstly, we used aggregated daily delay profile to visualize how the delay is distributed in space and time. And the pattern of daily delay distribution is represented by the image features. Secondly, the image features are extracted by the pre-trained neural network ResNet50, and the output image feature vector are used for implementing unsupervised k-means clustering algorithm. Finally, the k-means clustering results reveal five different daily delay patterns. The distinctive characteristics of these five delay patterns are analyzed and lead to some significant results, which could provide public transport operators with a better understanding of how delays occur on a specific line.