TransitDroid: Delivering real-rime bus tracking information on mobile devices

1. Bus Bus Walking time AVL AVL Data Data Data Data Tracking Tracking Prediction Prediction Arrival Time Component Component Component Component Bus Arrival Bus Tracking System Bus Tracking System User Data LBS Strand TransitDroid: Delivering real-rime bus tracking information on mobile devices Bashir Shalaik, Ricky Jacob and Adam Winstanley Introduction This application uses the real-time information such as current location and timestamp of both bus and users to provide bus route information. The web interface provides a graphical interface which displays and updates vehicle location on OSM, it also shows vehicle details textually through table. The mobile device provides the user with the expected arrival time of the next bus at the bus stop based on the user’s current position. • The recent technological advances in mobile communication, computing and geo-positioning technologies have made real-time transit vehicle information systems an interesting application area. • In this work we present a system which displays the transit information on an OpenStreetMap (OSM) web interface and delivers this information on the Google Android mobile device. The content is in the form of predicted arrival/departure times for buses at user-selectable geographic locations within a transit region. • Designing and implementation of a distributed transit vehicle information system will help reduce stress as well • as improve confidence and perception of transit systems. Place holder foran Image Figure (2) Public interface of Blackpool transit system with updated vehicle location on an OSM interface developed using OpenLayers. System Implementation Web & Mobile Interface Design The system uses web technologies such as JavaScript, MySQL, XML, PHP and Ajax. The position of the bus along with the timestamp is sent to the server using GPRS which inserts the data into a MySQL database. JavaScript, PHP and Ajax are used to prepare the web interface in order to display all the transit information. Fig (2) shows the public interface of Blackpool transit system with updated vehicle location on an OSM interface developed using OpenLayers. The mobile interface was developed using the open source android operating system for mobile devices. In this project a HTC Magic smart phone that runs on the Android operating system was used to communicate with the transit project server. The mobile device uses a HTTP protocol to connect with the MySQL database on server.figure (2) shows Emulator device of Android mobile phone with user current location and Bus expected time of arrival To view arrival/departure time on the mobile device, the user selects his/her preferred destination; the transit system collects his current location from built-in GPS. The user’s current location along with the destination selected by the user is sent using the HTTP protocol to the server by appending it to the URL which connects to the server. The URL from the mobile device is transmitted and the response is displayed on the mobile screen. In a project between NUIM and Blackpool Transport, a dynamic web-based transit system was developed for controlling and analysing transport system. The transit information displayed on OSM web interfaces and Bus Expected time of Arrival is delivered on the Google Android mobile device. The system uses off-the-shelf GPS/GPRS integrated units programmed to transmit location at regular intervals (45 seconds approximately) while the vehicle is in motion fig(1) shows structure and components of real time bus tracking system. The data is stored on a server and is then visualised through a standard web browser to show views representing current locations of vehicles in close-to-real-time. Fig (3) Emulator device of Android mobile phone with user current location and Bus expected time of arrival Conclusion and Future work In this work we have shown that transit information collected in real time can be shown on OSM for tracking and monitoring. Internet enabled mobile phones can receive real-time transit information. Android software for smart mobile phones offers the ability to overcome the physical restriction of interface design on mobile phones. To further improve bus arrival time prediction accuracy, transit data from other sources can be incorporated into the predictor algorithms. Future work on this project includes development of a feature which alerts a user when bus is a specified number of minutes away. Figure(1) Real-time bus tracking system implementation