  The majority of public transport vehicles are fitted with Automatic Vehicle
Location (AVL) systems generating a continuous stream of data. The availability
of this data has led to a substantial body of literature addressing the
development of algorithms to predict Estimated Times of Arrival (ETA). Here
research literature reporting the development of ETA prediction systems
specific to busses is reviewed to give an overview of the state of the art.
Generally, reviews in this area categorise publications according to the type
of algorithm used, which does not allow an objective comparison. Therefore this
survey will categorise the reviewed publications according to the input data
used to develop the algorithm. The review highlighted inconsistencies in
reporting standards of the literature. The inconsistencies were found in the
varying measurements of accuracy preventing any comparison and the frequent
omission of a benchmark algorithm. Furthermore, some publications were lacking
in overall quality. Due to these highlighted issues, any objective comparison
of prediction accuracies is impossible. The bus ETA research field therefore
requires a universal set of standards to ensure the quality of reported
algorithms. This could be achieved by using benchmark datasets or algorithms
and ensuring the publication of any code developed.
