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I'm working on my Ph.D. research and I hope that you can help me with my problem.

I have GPS tracking data for minibus taxis in two shapefiles, one for taxi trips and the other for the stops of the taxis during each specific trip. Only the stops shapefile is used as input for a simulation software and for this purpose the shapefile is converted to a comma-separated value (.csv) file to comply with the software format requirements. However, due to the fact that the software chooses the shortest route between the recorded stops, it omits some actual distances that are traveled by taxis which are reflected in the available trip route shapefile of the data; which would lead to inaccurate estimates of the results under the investigation. The missing distances can be noticed in the accompanied trip shapefile as shown in the figure below. They also appear in the results I got from the simulation.

Missing distances between recorded taxi stops

enter image description here

Now I question whether it is possible to use QGIS to create extra virtual stop points along the actual taxi route using the trip shapefile and then merge these points with the actual stops in the stops’ shapefile with the following conditions:

  1. Each created virtual point has an ID that is compatible with the actual stops and trips IDs, or maybe we can create new IDs for the whole new dataset
  2. Each point has an x and y coordinates
  3. The points are created at identified distances and follow the sequence of the actual stops along the routes such that all the old and new points be considered as taxi stops in one shapefile and thereafter be converted to a csv file; and that
  4. For the time component I need these points to be identified in year, day, hour, minute and second in the same manner as appeared in the attributes table of the stops’ shapefile and also, they have to follow the actual stopping times sequence of the original stops.

A screenshot of the stops data format is illustrated below:

Input data format

and for the trip data format: enter image description here

I am dealing with a large dataset so manual methods are not viable.

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    I think your question would be clearer with some illustrations. Can you provide a sample of your dataset and a picture of the results you are getting VS the results you want to obtain?
    – ChloeG
    Mar 6 at 7:52
  • Hi ChloeG, thanks for your reply. I've added some illustration pictures, hope it's clearer now.
    – Salma Abdelgadir
    Mar 6 at 10:48
  • It's not clear why you can't just merge the stops shapefile back into the trips shapefile, and then create a brand new ID (or IDs?) that covers the whole dataset as per 1. Presumably both datasets already have time, x and y components as per 2 & 4. This would seem to cover point 3 as well.
    – Tom Brennan
    Mar 6 at 10:55
  • Hi Tom, it's possible but the problem is that I need extra points between my actual points to cover the route, and when I create them automatically at specified distances along the route they don't relate to my actual points, hence I cannot assign a stopping time for those new points that follow the sequence of my actual stopping times.
    – Salma Abdelgadir
    Mar 6 at 11:14
  • Does the trip shapefile not have the extra points, along with the times?
    – Tom Brennan
    Mar 6 at 11:29

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