An Internet-of-Things Enabled Connected Navigation System for Urban Bus Riders

Marcus Handte, Stefan Foell, Stephan Wagner, Gerd Kortuem, Pedro Jose Marron

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

102 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A key challenge for rapidly growing cities of today is to provide effective public transport services to satisfy the increasing demands for urban mobility. Toward this goal, the Internet of Things (IoT) has great potential to overcome existing deficiencies of public transport systems given its ability to embed smart technology into real-life urban contexts. In this paper, we show how this paradigm can be applied to the public transport domain and present the Urban Bus Navigator (UBN), an IoT enabled navigation system for urban bus riders. UBN provides two novel information services for bus users: 1) micro-navigation and 2) crowd-aware route recommendation. Micro-navigation refers to fine-grained contextual guidance of passengers along a bus journey by recognizing boarded bus vehicles and tracking the passenger's journey progress. Crowd-aware route recommendation collects and predicts crowd levels on bus journeys to suggest better and less crowded routes to bus riders. We present the technical system behind the UBN and report on results from an in-the-wild study in Madrid, Spain, that indicates removed barriers for public transport usage and a positive impact on how people feel about bus journeys.

Original languageEnglish
Article number7452551
Pages (from-to)735-744
Number of pages10
JournalIEEE Internet of Things Journal
Volume3
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2016

Keywords

  • Bus ride recognition
  • bus transport
  • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • navigation system
  • passenger detection
  • smart city

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