Abstract on Bus Real-Time Bus routing Information System for MTC Chennai

1. MTCroid
The Real-time Bus Route Information System for Mobile
Devices
(A Mobile Bus Application for the Android Platform.)
By: Md Shaukat Ali
2010202032
MCA (Regular)
UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF
Dr. P. Geetha
Assistant Professor
Department Of Information Science & Technology
Anna University
Project Type: Internal
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2. ABSTRACT
In recent years we have seen an explosion in Smartphone ownership. Along with this increase
in ownership comes the opportunity to utilize to sensory inputs of these devices in order to
make our lives simpler and to allow us to get through our days more efficiently. One widely
used input for mobile applications is GPS (Global Positioning System) location. This in
combination with Google Maps for example provides a great opportunity to provide the user
with rich location specific data. This project aims to use both GPS location and Google Maps
in the development of an Android application for the Metropolitan Transport Corporation
(MTC) Chennai.
The Metropolitan Transport Corporation (formerly known as Pallavan Transport
Corporation) sometimes known as the MTC, is the agency that operates the public
transport bus service in Chennai, India. It operates in an area of 3929 square kilometre. As of
2012, the corporation operates 42,961 services daily in 800 routes .Buses transportation
System is one of the busiest system in Chennai. The MTC alone carries around 5 million
passengers per day. Although it provides service with efficiency to citizens in Chennai,
people still come across the time when they miss a bus and spend a long time queuing at the
bus stops. The bus arrival time is primary information to most city transport travellers.
Excessively long waiting time at bus stops often discourages the travellers and makes them
reluctant to take buses.
As from the MTC Chennai sources approx 1000 buses are equipped with GPS, especially
buses of popular routes. Based on this data I proposed an android based application which
show a dynamic timetable for the route at the bus stop and show the locations in Google map
.Now a days substantial numbers of smart phones user would use 3G technology to get fast
access to Internet as well the facilities of Geo-locating came with almost all smart phones.
The project is aiming to implement a bus arrival predictor on the platform of Google Android
that can provide relevant bus route information with bus arrival time to users. The calculation
will be done on the server side and the processed data will be retrieved and presented to the
user’s mobile phones. The project explored the great flexibility and capability of Google
Android mobile phones.
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3. ANDROID ACTIVITY LIFECYCLE
SYSTEM GOALS AND OBJECTIVES :
The overall system is broken down into components to achieve the following
objectives-
Develop an application showing a dynamic timetable for a route at a bus stop.
Show bus locations on a Google Map. It should automatically refresh the locations.
Make use of devices with GPS chips to find stops near a user.
Make an attractive and user friendly interface.
Create an HTTP based API for use by the Android client.
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4. The first two goals in my opinion are most important. The application should be fast and the
data provided by a simple uncluttered interface to provide a good user experience. This is the
purpose of an application; to provide the user with valuable information with the least amount
of work on their part.
OVERALL SYSTEM DESIGN:
This project was divided into three main components. They are list below:
1. The MTCRoid client.
This is what the user interacts with. It has to be quick and simple to use.
The user should not be concerned about any other components making up
the system. To them this is the entire application.
2. The MTCRoid Server:
This is a server written in Java. It provides a RESTful API, used to provide
information to the Android client using HTTP requests.
3. The MySQL database.
The MySQL database contains all the schedule data provided by MTC, all queryable.
6.Google SERVER
Maps API 4.SERV
ER
MOBILE
3.WEB
APPLIC SERVICE
ATION 1.GPS API GPS
INTER
7.Google NET
Geocoding
API 2. CLIENT
5.RESOURC APPLICATION
ES
8.MTC
Database
SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
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5. LITRATURE SURVEY
Reference Papers:
1. Reference Paper 1
Title: A prescription for transit arrival/departure prediction using automatic vehicle location
data
Author: F.W. Cathey, D.J. Dailey
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle,
Year: 2003
http://www.its.washington.edu/pubs/trc2003.pdf
This paper we present a general prescription for the prediction of transit vehicle
arrival/departure. This prescription uses a data flow approach and breaks the task of
predicting arrival/departure into several component parts. Each of these parts is realized as
software that implements an algorithm to accomplish the goals of that component
2.Refernce paper 2
Title: Prediction Model of Bus Arrival and Departure Times Using AVL and APC Data
Author: Amer Shalaby, University of Toronto Ali Farhan, City of Calgary
Year:2004
http://nctr.usf.edu/jpt/pdf/JPT%207-1%20Shalaby.pdf
The emphasis of this research effort was on using AVL and APC dynamic data to develop a
bus travel time model capable of providing real-time information on bus arrival and departure
times to passengers (via traveller information services) and to transit controllers for the
application of proactive control strategies. The developed model is comprised of two Kalman
filter algorithms for the prediction of running times and dwell times alternately in an
integrated framework.
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6. 3. Reference Paper 3
Title: How Long to Wait?: Predicting Bus Arrival Time with Mobile Phone based
Participatory Sensing
Author: Pengfei Zhou, Yuanqing Zheng
Mo Li
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Year: 2012
http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/home/limo/papers/sys012fp.pdf
This paper present a bus arrival time prediction system based on bus passengers’
participatory sensing. With commodity mobile phones, the bus passengers’ surrounding
environmental context is electively collected and utilized to estimate the bus travelling routes
and predict bus arrival time at various bus stops. The proposed system solely relies on the
collaborative effort of the participating users and is independent from the bus operating
companies, so it can be easily adopted to support universal bus service systems without
requesting support from particular bus operating companies.
Reference Websites :
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Transport_Corporation_(Chennai)
Social Encyclopaedia
2. http://www.mtcbus.org/ MTC Chennai Website
3. https://play.google.com/store/search?q=Chennai+MTC&c=apps (List of previously
created apps)
4. http://www.livechennai.com/detailnews.asp?newsid=1609
5. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-03/chennai/31020926_1_mtc-plans-
gps-system-21g
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