A Low-cost Public Transport Tracking and Information System for Commuters in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Public transportation in developing countries, such as in Sri Lanka, can be generally quite chaotic; these ranges from poor management of the vehicles, traffic congestion, reckless driving and unreliable service provision. The main objective of this study is to develop a customized location-based service catering for the needs of public transport users. For that purpose a free prototype solution for management of public transport is developed providing GPS and GPRS technologies for real-time transmission of locations from the tracking devices (i.e., ticketing machines and/or Android phones) to the central database server and finally rendering to an Android application. The development process of the system involves the analysis of existing systems used in Sri Lanka, system design and development, evaluation and implementation. Thus, a cheaper solution can be provided for passenger information saving users waiting times for public buses and effective transport management by preventing vehicle misuse. The chosen solution comprises an Android application providing real-time graphical visualization on Google maps for prediction of the arrival time of the vehicles.