A Pilot Study: Shuttle Bus Tracker App for Campus Users-codeshoppy

A Pilot Study: Shuttle Bus Tracker App for Campus 

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Many institutions of higher learning provide shuttle bus service to students and staff to and from between public pick up point and campus for their convenience.  However, such service is not receiving positive feedback as users have to wait without any clue when the bus is going to arrive. Furthermore, the time schedule posted on the University website is often inconsistent. Hence, providing the accurate bus arrival time is important as it can reduce waiting time at bus stops as well as to decide on the travel plan. The proposed shuttle bus tracker app aims to minimize waiting time by incorporating features that allows commuters to know the location of the bus in real-time, to make query about the arrival time of the bus as well as to provide real-time traffic update about the shuttle bus routes. The app calculates the bus arrival time by getting the location of the bus chosen and the bus stop then passing their coordinates to Google's distance matrix Application Programming Interface (API) web service which returns the time to travel from the selected shuttle bus location to the chosen bus stop. The Google Maps Distance Matrix (API) is a service that provides travel distance and time for a matrix of origins and destinations, based on the recommended route between start and end points. In order to achieve the main aim of this study, a pilot test was conducted and test results suggest that the proposed app has achieved its objectives.

 

Traffic plays an important role not only in developing country but also in developed country. People use it for many purposes such as travelling to work, school and personal use, etc. Among them, the bus service is not only affordable for public transport passengers (also known as commuters) but also reduce the fuel consumption and traffic congestion caused by private car users. However, limitation of platforms which provide traffic information leads the increments in traffic congestion. The bus arrival time is important information to most commuters and longer waiting time for the bus often discourage the commuters and make them reluctant to take buses. In order to overcome the traffic congestion caused by limited traffic information, most of the governments provide support not only to public traffic systems but also the traffic information systems [1].Students are one of the main crowds, among all the commuters, who are heavily depending on public transport service. However, the public transport might not be able to reach directly to their preferred destination such as school or universities and often send them to nearest interchange point. This controversy issues often disappoint the students to use public transport. Hence, some of the institutes or universities provide shuttle bus services between public interchange point and respective universities or institutes. Although, shuttle bus services solve traffic issues for the students, often it disappoints students because of arrival time and waiting time to take shuttle bus. University often receive negative feedback from students due to excessive waiting time and unreliable bus schedule [12,13]. According to Yusoff, McLeay and Woodruffe-Burton (2015), student support facilities have been identified as one out of the 12 factors that drive student satisfaction in higher education [2]. Since, providing shuttle bus service can be considered one of the student support facilities, thus it is essential for administrator of the University to take this matter seriously for strategic planning.(read more)

 

As mentioned earlier, the accuracy of bus arrival time is important information for commuters and failure to provide accurate bus arrival time or long waiting time at the bus stops often makes commuters reluctant to use bus service. Most of the bus operating companies provide bus schedule at the bus stops or on their web for the commuters. However, only limited information such as operating hours and time intervals are provided in their schedule. Hence, information such as real- time schedule and arrival time of the buses may not be available in their schedule. Buses arrival time calculation depends highly on speed of the vehicle as well as traffic condition, which are also link to weather conditions and traffic incidents [1]. Therefore, it is more complex to predict travel time and to get accurate real-time bus information without the help of technology. With the help of advanced mobile technology, smartphones can be used to track the real time location of the buses and estimate bus arrival time.

Nowadays, phones can be used not only to make call or send short message, but also for smart services such as browsing internet, taking photos or videos, working on spreadsheet and many more. Hence, these are called smartphones. Smartphones are one of the popular medium to track the real-time information such as real-time bus information as those are portable to the users and easy to use.

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