Public Transit Monitoring System

Our society is highly mobile and increasingly dependent on transportation facilities. Providing and accurate and effective solution for the safe and efficient movement of persons and goods continues to be a great challenge. The chief mode of transportation in Chennai is the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) buses since it is flexible to people of all ages. In the present MTC system, the vehicles are monitored manually by creating a datasheet.  It is mandatory for the driver or the conductor of the corresponding vehicle to make an entry that about the arrival time and departure time of the vehicle.  Since humans are liable to make errors, the current system is improbable to achieve cent percent accuracy. Public Transportation Monitoring System (PTMS) provides an alternative solution for the above problem. The arrival and departure of the vehicles in the depot can be constantly monitored and saved in a database. This makes the above mentioned process autonomous, with relatively more accuracy.

The concept of wireless communication using RF (Radio Frequency) signals is used to transfer information of the public vehicles. Information of the public vehicles can be transmitted and Internet of Things (IoT) provides an effective platform to interconnect all the resources and provides immediate information interaction to the people.

The public vehicles are incorporated with a transmitter, encoded with the information regarding the vehicle.  The Bus depot can be embedded with a receiver module at the entry and exit level.  Radio Frequency (RF) communication is preferred for its range specifications and low cost. Thus, the information of the vehicles entering the depot is transmitted through wireless communication to the receiver which can be displayed in LCD to showcase the numbers’ of the buses inside the depot to the people.  Android application provides a platform for the people to extract information about the buses in the depot all around Chennai.  When the bus leaves the depot, the information of the corresponding vehicle is received by the receiver module and is erased off from the display to indicate that the vehicle is no longer inside the depot. The entire system can be monitored using an android app thereby providing an easy access of information to the people.

The information about the bus will be written in the micro controllers. The receiver module will be fitted in two places. They are:

·         At the entry of the depot.

·         At the exit of the depot.

Once the transmitter comes in the range of the receiver, the bus number will be transmitted to the receiver module via RF signals. Once the receiver receives the data of the bus, it has to perform the following processes:

·         Store the information about the bus in a server.

·         Display the buses which are inside the depot with the help of an LCD display outside the depot.

·         Provide connection to the user’s android application with this sever so that people can access these information just by sitting in their homes.

The android application is equipped with information like the bus number, arrival time and estimated departure time. By selecting a particular depot, you will be able to see all these details for the buses available in that particular depot. By clicking on a particular bus route, one can see the entire bus route and the approximate time in which the bus comes to that particular stopping. With all these information an individual will be easily able to catch the bus which he wants without anyone’s help.