Use of facial biometrics to control benefits and gratuities in Public Transport: a case study in the city of Ilhéus, Bahia, Brazil

Abstract

The Collective Public Transport system has significant relevance for urban mobility. With an emphasis on transport by bus, in the relationship between the use of Collective Public Transport by passengers and citizens, deviations may occur due to non-payment of the established fare, using means to circumvent the system. Thus, technologies, such as facial biometrics, present themselves as a means to control and prevent revenue evasion caused by misuse and fraud. In this sense, this research is guided by the objective of analyzing the contribution of facial biometrics to combating the misuse of gratuities and benefits in Collective Public Transport in the city of Ilhéus, Bahia. This is an exploratory-descriptive research, of a basic nature, which makes use of the quantitative approach in non-parametric data, duly evaluated by the Wilcoxon test. By analyzing the use of public transport from April 2011 to April 2013, it was found that there was a reduction of 691,476 (17.36%) tickets in the 12 months after the adoption of facial biometrics, which suggests an adequacy of the use of benefits. Future research suggests the analysis of the correlation between the adoption of biometrics by facial recognition as a control and mitigation tool for tariff evasion.