Poster: Monitoring transit systems using low cost WiFi technology

Abstract

The transit bus system is an integral part of urban transportation. There is a high demand of people to be served by buses around university campuses in the United States of America. Often times, the members of university communities find themselves waiting for a significant amount of time for a bus to arrive at the bus station. It is inconvenient for public transit riders, and also results in students being late to their classes, meetings, and important events. Universities have numerous bus stops as well as routes on which riders can use for travel. The transit bus system was chosen as it is a key component in achieving a more sustainable urban transportation system. In order to monitor the quality of transit buses and passengers' services, we design, develop, and demonstrate a low cost technology with WiFi capabilities that detects the majority of the riders on the bus system at each station. In this research, we collect, analyze and archive transit and passenger data (e.g. waiting times) to Cloud Storage from each bus station. The goal is to improve the passenger's experience by refining the current infrastructure in place, focusing on better planning and increasing bus ridership through better scheduling. By collecting such data (e.g., waiting times), the performance of the bus system can be further analyzed and suggest changes to a route in order to achieve a more efficient and sustainable urban transportation system.