International Journal of Applied Engineering Research ISSN 0973-4562 Volume 9, Number 21 (2014) pp. 9391-9400 © Research India Publications http://www.ripublication.com
Design of an Automated System for Proper Utilization of Travel Time Variability of Public Transport System A. Ahmad1, M. A. K. Rizvi1, N. Mohanan1, Y. Z. Sait2, A. S. D’Silva2 and M. Sadhu2 1
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, PO Box 33, Zip code 123, Oman
[email protected] 2 Waljat College of Applied Sciences, Muscat, Oman (In collaboration with Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, India)
ABSTRACT Traffic congestion is as one of the biggest challenges facing by the developing countries’ transportation systems. Apart from other causes that create delays in commuting time, the traffic congestion is the most important cause. Due to delays, commuters, especially students, using public transport like school buses face a great confusion regarding the time of arrival of their commute while departing from their schools. Through this work we developed and designed an innovative automated system for monitoring and proper utilization of travel time variability of commuter’s mode of transportation which will eliminate the confusion by effectively generating an alert to its awaiting commuter once the transport is few minutes away from reaching the pickup point of that particular commuter. The generated alert signal is in the form of a miss call to the commuter’s mobile phone number and hence, making the system a cost effective one. The developed system is created by interfacing GSM and GPS modules via a microcontroller. The developed system helps the commuters in using the travel time variability information properly and productively in scheduling their time management rather than unutilized waiting time and also, eliminates the risks of missing their transport in the case of early arrival. Keywords-Traffic congestion, Travel time variability, Microcontroller, GPS, GSM, Bus transport commuting system
Paper Code: 26880 IJAER
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INTRODUCTION A proper and systematic public transport plays a major role in economic development and convenience of the people in any country. However, public transport in most of the developing countries is not as good as its requirement. This is because of the lack of systematic planning and monitoring the parameters affecting the system. Particularly, automobile transportation system is affected severely due directly to dramatic increases in automobile ownership, vehicle kilometers traveled and stagnant growth in transportation capacity. The traffic congestion is due to is due to many affecting parameters cause delays and uncertainties of travel time. Figure 1 depicts the various parameters affecting the commuter (Automobile; Bus) travel time.
Figure 1: Parameters affecting Bus travel time
Due to variable bus time travel commuters either end up in waiting for their transport resulting confusion and frustration for wasting their time uselessly without properly utilizing and managing this time when it is delayed or missing the commute when it arrives earlier than expected time. This results to a sense of panic, tension, and anxiety among the commuters using these uncertainties in their mode of transports [1]-[6]. To address this issue, we aimed to create a portable information system device which would alert the passenger few minutes prior to the arrival of the transport. This device was built on the foundation of Global Positioning System (GPS) and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) technologies and they are interfaced using a microcontroller [7]-[10]. This device will be installed in the transport vehicle like school bus. For the ease of explanation and depiction, we consider the example of school students as commuters and the school bus as commuting mode of transportation throughout the manuscript of this paper.
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Location Trial A 1 2 3 B 1 2 3 C 1 2 3
Latitude 23°56'6.485"N 23°56'6.472"N 23°56'6.460"N 23°56'6.686"N 23°56'6.670"N 23°56'6.687"N 23°57'6.688"N 23°57'8.670"N 23°57'8.675"N
Data used 23°56'6.000"N
23°56'6.000"N
23°57'8.000"N
Longitude 58°16'6.240"E 58°16'6.240"E 58°16'6.240"E 58°16'7.941"E 58°16'7.936"E 58°16'7.930"E 58°17'7.889"E 58°17'7.890"E 58°17'7.901"E
Data Used 58°16'6.000"E
58°16'7.000"E
58°17'7.000"E
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK The proposed design of an automated system for proper utilization of travel time variability of public transport system (Wise-call system) combines a positioning hardware, a communication platform that can be used to monitor and track a commuter transport in real time. This enables the transport management centers to observe, collect, and analyze location information about a commuter vehicle in real time and furnish the information to the commuters. This processed real time data will give an agency the ability to make better and more informed decisions while also providing quicker response to emergencies. The benefits to the commuters mean better on time performance and less waiting time at a bus stop location or in a case of delay it provides a better time management to the commuters. As task of our future direction of work, we aim to make the proposed design more reliable, with more secured data transmission and better fault-tolerance. A test mode [15] feature can be easily incorporated in the design to make the system testable. Further, error checking and correcting circuitry with secure data transmission can be embedded in the design with the simple use of Linear Feedback Shift Registers (LFSRs) and its applications [16]-[22]. We also intend to add keypad to enable editing of data on runtime. Further, we are in process of translating the electronic circuitry on to Printed Circuit Board (PCB) via Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) using Verilog Hardware Description Language (HDL).
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[2] Kieu, Le Minh, Ashish Bhaskar, and Edward Chung, "Establishing definitions and modeling public transport travel time variability", Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting, 2014. [3] D. Bajaj and N. Gupta, “GPS Based Automatic Vehicle Tracking Using RFID”, International Journal of Engineering and Innovative Technology (IJEIT), Volume 1, Issue 1, pp. 31-35, 2012. [4] A. S. Dinkar and S.A Shaikh, “Design and Implementation Of Vehicle Tracking System Using GPS”, Journal of Information Engineering and Applications, Volume 1, No. 3, pp. 1-7, 2011. [5] Yan Zhou, Glenn Hamilton Evans Jr., Mashrur Chowdhury, Kuang-Ching Wang and Ryan Fries, “Wireless Communication Alternatives for Intelligent Transportation Systems: A Case Study”, Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems: Technology, Planning, and Operations, Volume 15, Issue 3, pages 147160, 2011. [6] R. W. Hall, “Passenger waiting time and information acquisition using automatic vehicle location for verification”, Transportation Planning and Technology Journal, Volume 24, Issue 3, pp. 249-269, 2001. [7] John Scourias, Overview of the Global System for Mobile Communications, 1996 http://ccnga.uwaterloo.ca/~jscouria/GSM/gsmreport.html (Accessed: Aug.15, 2014). [8] The Global Positioning System, Official U.S. Government information about the Global Positioning System (GPS) and related topics, http://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/ (Accessed: August 15, 2014). [9] About GPS, Garmin Ltd., http://www8.garmin.com/aboutGPS/ (Accessed: August 15, 2014). [10] AT Commands Reference Guide, Telit Wireless Solutions, 2006. https://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/Cellular%20Modules/AT_Commands_R eference_Guide_r0.pdf (Accessed: August 15, 2014). [11] Dale, DePriest, Navigation and GPS Articles, http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/nmea.htm (Accessed: August 15, 2014). [12] Datasheet MAX232, Texas Instruments Inc. (Accessed: August 15, 2014), http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheet/texasinstruments/max232.pdf. [13] Datasheet AT89S52, Atmel Inc. (Accessed: August 15, 2014). http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheet/atmel/doc1919.pdf. [14] Engineers Garage, Interfacing GSM Module with 8051 microcontroller (AT89C51) without using PC, http://www.engineersgarage.com/Microcontroller/8051projects/interfacinggsm-8051-Microcontroller-circuit-code (Accessed: August 15, 2014). [15] Ahmad A., “Achievement of higher testability goals through the modification of shift register in LFSR based testing, ” International Journal of Electronics, Taylor & Francis, Volume 82, No. 3, pp. 249-260, 1997. [16] Ahmad, A., Al-Busaidi S. S., Al-Musharafi, M. J., (2013), “On Properties of PN Sequences generated by LFSR-a Generalized Study and Simulation
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A. Ahmad et al Modeling”, Indian Journal of Science and Technology, Volume 6, No. 10, pp. 5351-5358, 2013. Ahmad, A. and Hayat, L., (2011), “Selection of Polynomials for Cyclic Redundancy Check for the use of High Speed Embedded-An Algorithmic Procedure”, WSEAS Transactions on Computers, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 16-20, 2011 Ahmad, A. (2010), “A Simulation Experiment on a Built-In Self Test Equipped with Pseudorandom Test Pattern Generator and Multi-Input Shift Register (MISR)”, ACEEE International Journal of VLSI Design & Communication Systems vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 1-12, 2010. Ahmad, A., Al-Abri, D., (2010), “Design of an Realistic Test Simulator for Built-In Self-Test Environment”, Journal of Engineering Research, Volume 7, No. 2, pp. 69-79, 2010. Ahmad, A. and Al-Maashri, A., (2008): “Investigating Some Special Sequence Length Generated Through an External Exclusive-NOR Type LFSRs”, International Journal Electrical and Computer Engineering, (PERGAMON, Elsevier Science), Volume 34, No. 1, pp. 270-280, 2008. Jamil, T. and Ahmad, A., (2002), “An investigation in to the application of linear feedback shift registers for steganography”, Proceedings IEEE SoutheastCon2002, Columbia, SC, USA, April 5-7, pp. 239-244, 2002. Ahmad, A., Nanda N.K. and Garg K., (1989), “The use of irreducible characteristic polynomials in an LFSR based testing of digital circuits”, Proceedings of 4th IEEE international conference of region 10 (TENCON-89), held at Bombay (India), Nov. 21-23, pp. 494-496, 1989.
