Transit Technology and Data
What this domain tests
Transit Technology and Data tests AVL, CAD, APC, fare systems, GTFS, dashboards, data quality, and cybersecurity. Items ask you to choose the right measure and to notice when data are incomplete or misleading.
Core rules and concepts
- AVL gives vehicle location and time; APC gives boardings and alightings; CAD records incidents and dispatch; fare systems give revenue and taps.
- Define KPIs before reporting: on-time performance needs a tolerance and a denominator.
- Data quality checks include missing records, duplicates, outliers, and clock synchronization.
- GTFS feeds power trip planning; inaccurate feeds create customer-facing errors.
- Cybersecurity controls protect operational technology, personal data, and fare systems; least privilege and patching matter.
Worked example
A month has 500 scheduled trips. AVL shows 460 completed trips, of which 23 arrived more than 5 minutes late. On-time performance is 437 ÷ 460 = 95.0%. But 40 trips have no AVL data. Reasoning: reporting 95% without the missing 40 overstates reliability. The correct action is to report completeness (92%) alongside OTP and investigate the data gap.
Traps that cost marks
Dividing late trips by scheduled trips when the question defines completed trips; ignoring missing data; comparing KPIs with different definitions; and treating a dashboard as a substitute for validation.