Understanding bus passengers’ vibrational discomfort based on graphical modeling: a field experiment

Minghui Xie, Jialin Fan, Sen Wei and Yuanqing Wang

To understand the vibrational discomfort experienced by passengers and improve bus service quality, we conducted field experiments to collect triaxial acceleration data from 18 bus trips and the riding responses of 22 participants simultaneously in Xi’an, China. Compared with the fuzzy evaluation based on ISO 2631, this paper innovatively established the coding rule of sharp acceleration change and constructed the graphical matrix for vibrational discomfort. Not only was the degree of discomfort evaluated, but the parameters causing discomfort and their interrelationships were quantitatively determined through statistical analysis and ridge regression. The results revealed that sharp changes in acceleration are significantly related to vibrational discomfort. The probability of graphical coding occurrence for acceleration changes is heterogeneous and results in different levels of discomfort and duration of motion sickness. This paper provides valuable insights into improving riding comfort for bus passengers.