Human participatory sensing in fixed route bus information system

Abstract

In urban areas, a large population relies on buses with fixed route for commuting within a town. However, in most of the developing and underdeveloped countries, real-time bus arrival time information is still unavailable to the commuters. This is mainly due to the difficulty in installation and maintenance of existing infrastructure based solutions like Global Positioning System or Radio Frequency Identification system. In the present paper, we propose a human participatory instantaneous bus location information system, which relies on the ubiquity of mobile phones and on human participation in an opportunistic manner. We further propose an algorithm to estimate bus arrival time at different stops on the route. The localization and arrival time information is then provided to the commuters, either in response to their query or in the form of alerts. We believe that the proposed system can be made self sustainable by providing appropriate incentives to the commuters in lieu of localization of the buses. The provision of real time bus information can become an important incentive. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.