The Feasibility of Repurposing Recycled Cell Phones as Sensors in a Smart Campus Shuttle Monitoring System

Abstract

Information updates on the current location of public buses and shuttles are necessary to everyday commuter life and plays a vital role in their efficiency. Some current approaches to providing this information involve installation of stand-alone GPS modules and others involve user-driven participatory sensing. In this paper, we present a low-cost approach to providing information on a vehicle’s location by repurposing damaged mobile phones as sensors. This approach reduces the battery draining effect that users experience when using their personal cell phones to transmit the location of the vehicle (participatory sensing). Additionally, as small-island-developing states (SIDs), this concept reduces the need for the importation of new GPS devices by repurposing mobile devices that are already on island and will likely contribute to the landfill waste problem. We tested our repurposing approach with The University of the West Indies - Cave Hill Campus (UWICHC) student shuttle service in Barbados. Students access this system using any web-enabled device. The web application displays the shuttle`s location on a Google™ map that also shows the route and direction of the shuttle. A student survey indicated that they found the system useful and are willing to donate retired cell phones to such a project. This result demonstrates the sustainability of the mobile phone repurposing concept.