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A Real Time Transit Tracker for College Bus

Article in Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience · February 2019

DOI: 10.1166/jctn.2019.7762

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 Copyright © 2019 American Scientific Publishers Journal of
All rights reserved Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience
Printed in the United States of America Vol. 16, 1–4, 2019

A Real Time Transit Tracker for College Bus

C. Senthamilarasi1 ∗ , D. V. Soundari1 , B. Vidhya1 , and R. Karthikeyan2
1
Department of ECE, Sri Krishna College of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore 641008, Tamilnadu, India
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dr. NGP Institute of Technology, Coimbatore 641048, Tamilnadu, India

Unusual and unexpected conditions on the roads affect the smooth operation of the organizational
bus systems and the movement of vehicles. Also, everyday problems such as traffic congestion,
unexpected delays and irregular vehicle dispatching times take place. As a result of which students
and staffs of an organization get affected and they inevitably have to wait for the arrival of their
respective bus. A student or a staff waiting for the college bus may want to enquire about the current
location of the college bus. This inconvenience can be avoided by introducing Android based bus
tracking system which helps to retrieve the location coordinates of the college bus. The main aim of
this Android application is to track the college bus which would give the location of bus with the help
of Google map and help the users to plan their way to reach their college on time. This application
is highly used by the students and staffs of educational institutions since the android mobiles have
become common used and it is an easy way of tracking the buses.
Keywords: Transit Tracker, Android, GPS, GSM, Google Maps, SMS, Latitude.

1. INTRODUCTION about the location to an Android application tracking sys-

A bus tracking system is one of the most common applica- tem for mapping. The Android application may be greatly

RESEARCH ARTICLE
tions used for tracking buses. Today Android Applications used by college students and staffs since Android mobiles
are very good source for tracking the buses. It provides real has become common and spread everywhere. In addition,
time data on the movement of buses. Android phones are this will also enhance the security since the movement of
widely used for this purpose because they have GPS device the college buses is always available.
attached with it. Vehicle information can be viewed on The GPS system fixed in the bus will get location coor-
electronic maps via the Internet. Android has become very dinates and then it will be sent to the application through
popular in the world since it is an open source and there GSM module and Controller. In the application the stu-
are no extra fees for Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Being dents will be able to know the location status of their bus
a product of high technology, mobile phones are more through Google maps. Thereby knowing the location sta-
widely used and are becoming more and more popular. tus of the college bus, the students will be able to take
A vehicle tracking system is a commonly used appli- a decision whether to wait for the bus or to pick another
cation for tracking vehicles. Due to traffic congestion and mode of transportation without wasting their time.
road works, most of the buses are delayed. People have
to wait for their bus at the bus the stops for a long time
2. OVERVIEW OF REAL TIME BUS
without even knowing when bus will arrive. Thus, the
MONITORING SYSTEM
arrival time of the bus cannot be guaranteed. Many new
The Real Time Bus Monitoring and Passenger Information
technologies can be applied to college transport systems,
system is a standalone system that displays the real-time
which don’t run according to the predefined time table as
locations of the buses in the city. This system, designed to
described by the authorities due to reasons like traffic jams,
be deployed at various bus stops around city, is comprised
breakdowns etc. This increases the due time and makes
of a power source, a battery, a microprocessor, GLCD and
students uncertain of college bus arrival time. The main
GSM. The GSM will be used to poll a signal from the
focus of the project is to save the waiting time of students
systems installed on the buses that contains GPS data of
and provide them the location of the college bus. The GPS
each bus’s location. The data will then be processed by a
tracking device fixed in the bus can route that information
microprocessor connected to the GSM and used to display
on the GLCD. That will represent the require bus location
∗
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. information on the GLCD screens on the bus stops [1].

J. Comput. Theor. Nanosci. 2019, Vol. 16, No. xx 1546-1955/2019/16/001/004 doi:10.1166/jctn.2019.7762 1

 A Real Time Transit Tracker for College Bus Senthamilarasi et al.

This system will give the arrival time of the buses which
assist pedestrians in making the decision of whether to
wait for the bus.
Passenger Information System or PIS refers to the sys-
tem that provides passengers with information about the
arrival times and location of their buses. This project
aims at designing an access point which provides for a
dynamic passenger information system (PIS) available on
public displays at bus stops and bus terminals. The access
point is microcontroller based and is designed using the
Arduino Uno. In addition, an Android device with a GPS
transmitter app is placed in every bus which is to be Fig. 1. Proposed system.
tracked. The application sends the GPS coordinates every
two minutes to a GSM module which is placed at the bus
stops [2]. The GSM module communicates the location Google Maps. This application may be widely used by the
information with the Arduino and the current location of college students since Android smart phones have become
the bus is displayed on an LCD screen with the advent common and affordable to all. A real time system as the
of GPS and microcontroller technology, real time vehi- current location of the bus is updated in the form of lat-
cle tracking for better transport management has become itude and longitude information which is received by the
possible. students through their application [6]. The work which
The movement of college buses is affected by different is to be done in future has been explained below using
uncertain conditions as the day progresses such as traffic Figure 1.
congestion, unexpected delays, and randomness in passen- The main objective of the project is to save the waiting
ger demand, irregular vehicle-dispatching times and many time of college students and staffs and to provide them
more incidents. Many students and staff members are often the status of the college bus. Real time bus monitoring
late for college because they decide to wait for the bus system consists of 2 modules which include transmitter
instead of using an alternate transportation. To reduce this module and a receiver module. By using the GSM mod-
confusion and inconvenience, a message will be shown on ule and a controller, the transmitter will transmit the data
the web that will provide the real-time information about obtained from the GPS to the mobile android application
RESEARCH ARTICLE

the bus showing its arrival time which could reduce the via SMS [7]. The receiver module which is the mobile
anxiety of passengers waiting for the bus [3]. With the android application will be receiving the data i.e., latitude
advent of GPS and the omnipresent cellular network, real- and longitude from the transmitter module fitted in the
time vehicle tracking for better transport management has buses [8]. These received data will be used to know the
become possible. location status of the bus via Google maps.
It includes smart assistant system required for public
security and safety. The smart system includes safety from
rash driving, accident detection and monitoring facility.
It also include user-friendly application for user to track
bus on smart their phones. The smart system designed has
both online (GPS) and offline (GSM) for user friendly
service. It allows user to save its time by acknowledg-
ing no. of persons present in the bus as well as no.
of seats available in the bus along with the current and
next stop acknowledgment with its arrival timings. Smart
city is very much important for developing country now
days [4]. The smart life style of today allows us to
arrive at our destination as soon as possible. The changing
lifestyle is also important with the safety and comfort of
vehicle.

3. PROPOSED SYSTEM
The proposed work deals with the Real Time College
Bus Tracking Application which runs on Android smart
phones [5]. The main purpose of this application is to
provide exact location of the student’s respective buses in Fig. 2. Block diagram of transmitter and receiver section

2 J. Comput. Theor. Nanosci. 16, 1–4, 2019

Senthamilarasi et al. A Real Time Transit Tracker for College Bus

Module 1: Transmitter module

• When the appropriate bus is selected, the location is
found using the GPS module placed in the bus.
• Then the GPS data is sent to the ATMEGA microcon-
troller that interfaces GPS and GSM module.
• From the microcontroller, GSM module gets the loca-
tion coordinates and that will be sent to the user applica-
tion via sms shown in Figure 2.
Module 2: Receiver module
• In the android application, the user should enter their
details to login to the application.
• Then the user needs to send a request message to the
transmitter module via sms.
• By receiving the request message, the transmitter mod-
ule will send the latitude and longitude coordinates of the
requested bus [9]. Fig. 5. Tracking Location coordinates.

4. RESULTS start the application to track the bus location. shown in

4.1. Log-In Page of the Transit Tracker Figure 3.
Application Module
The below figure shows the log-in page of the android
4.2. Transit Tracker Application Module
application developed for giving user ID and password to
The below figure shows the location finder page of android
application developed for getting the latitude and longitude
of the bus and for locating the bus in Google maps [10].
By entering the mobile number which has been used in
GSM module and sending a request message to it, we will

RESEARCH ARTICLE
receive a message with location coordinates which can be
accessed by the android application to view the location
of the bus shown in Figures 4, 5.
The below Figure 6 shows the location of bus in Google
map which is obtained by clicking on the button available
to show location.

Fig. 3. User Login of application in mobile phone.

Fig. 4. Android application module. Fig. 6. Google map interface.

J. Comput. Theor. Nanosci. 16, 1–4, 2019 3

 A Real Time Transit Tracker for College Bus Senthamilarasi et al.

5. CONCLUSION References
This project presents the college bus tracking application 1. Khan, A. and Mishra, R., 2012. GPS-GSM based tracking system.
International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology, 3(2),
using smart phones. The transmitter mounted in the bus pp.161–164.
is used to transmit the location status information of vehi- 2. Muhammad, R., Nik, M. and Azher, F., 2009. Design of Intelligent
cle to the mobile application. The students can view the GPS Navigation System for Bus Monitoring and Station Reporting.
3. Patel, D., Seth, R., Mishra, V. and Pathari, R., 2015. Real-time bus
details regarding the bus location using his smart phone tracking system. Technology (IJARCET), 4(3).
via Google map. By the implementation of this project, 4. Hounsell, N.B., Shrestha, B.P. and D’Souza, C., 2012. Using Auto-
a complete track of the college buses is made available. matic Vehicle Location (AVL) Data for Evaluation of Bus Priority
at Traffic Signals.
Thereby knowing the location status of the bus, students 5. Xu, L., Gao, S. and Zhang, H., 2012. Dynamic Bus Monitoring and
can reduce their waiting time at the bus stops. The Appli- Scheduling System Based on ArcGIS Server Technology. 2012 Inter-
cation at the student’s end acts as a time saver. There- national Conference on Computer Science and Information Process-
ing (CSIP), August; IEEE. pp.1438–1441.
fore this system enables the students to plan their work 6. Han, S. and Huh, K., 2011. Monitoring system design for lateral
more efficiently as their waiting time at the bus stops is vehicle motion. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 60(4),
reduced. The main features of this system are the efficient pp.1394–1403.
7. Kamel, M.B.M., 2015. Real-time GPS/GPRS based vehicle tracking
usage of time and real time information on the availabil-
system. International Journal of Engineering and Computer Science,
ity of buses can also ensure security by keeping track of 4(8).
the bus. This system can be further extended for multi- 8. Naqvi, N.Z., 2015. Smart Public Transport System Using Mobile
Phone Based Sensing. 2015 Annual IEEE India Conference (INDI-
ple applications like Anti-theft system for cars and bikes,
CON), December; IEEE. pp.1–5.
managing of public transports like buses and trains, track- 9. Gharge, S., Chhaya, M., Chheda, G., Deshpande, J. and Gajra, N.,
ing of valuable things, as vehicle management software 2012. Real time bus monitoring system using GPS. An International
for transport companies and many more similar applica- Journal of Engineering Science and Technology, 2(3).
10. Li, W., Hu, Y., Fu, X., Lu, S. and Chen, D., 2015. Cooperative posi-
tions and this system can prove to be very helpful in the tioning and tracking in disruption tolerant networks. IEEE Transac-
future. tions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 26(2), pp.382–391.

Received: 9 September 2018. Accepted: 5 October 2018.

RESEARCH ARTICLE

4 J. Comput. Theor. Nanosci. 16, 1–4, 2019

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