The Effect of COVID-19 on the Transit System in Two Regions: Japan and USA

Abstract: The communication revolution that happened in the last ten years has increased the use of technology in the transportation world. Intelligent Transportation Systems wish to predict how many buses are needed in a transit system. With the pandemic effect that the world has faced since early 2020, it is essential to study the impact of the pandemic on the transit system. This paper proposes the leverage of Internet of Things (IoT) devices to predict the number of bus ridership before and during the pandemic. We compare the collected data from Kobe city, Hyogo, Japan, with data gathered from a college city in Virginia, USA. Our goal is to show the effect of the pandemic on ridership through the year 2020 in two different countries. The ultimate goal is to help transit system managers predict how many buses are needed if another pandemic hits.