Project Idea | Bus Notification System Using Crowdsourcing

Project Title: Bus Notification System Using Crowdsourcing

Introduction: Most of the daily commuters of RTC are curious to know the exact time of arrival of a bus to a particular stop. The time of arrival of bus depends on many factors such as time of the day etc. This may create a feeling of doubt and ambiguity for the commuter. “RTC GO” provides a solution for this problem, which is now possible due to much technical advancement in Mobile Computing.

Objective: Our idea is to develop an ANDROID APP which gives the notification of a bus arrival of a particular route for a particular stop. CROWDSOURCING is the main idea behind the working of the app.

Problems with Present System: In the existing system the user has no idea of the location of the bus and the degree of traffic in that particular route.

HACK: The passengers who have seen or boarded the bus have the privilege to scan the QR code which is installed on every bus beforehand. Once the user scans the QR code, he/she can now post their location along with some bus details. This ensures that the user is in the bus, recognized by RTC. Once the user submits the relevant data, it is sent to the cloud and the same is posted and notified to all users who would like to commute on that particular route. This gives the commuters brief information such as ETA, the situation of the traffic with respect to the bus and the number of vacant seats available (if the user wishes to report it). If the user does not prefer his/her daily bus due to various reasons, they can opt for another bus of their choice, which is listed in the app.
The passenger is requested to agree to the permissions within the app. The location tracking will be enabled unless the user wishes to opt out. Once they exit the tracking service, there is a built-in reward system which rewards them for providing the data. The rewards are in the form of points, which can be converted into real cash once we start earning revenue.

Note: We do not take the user’s data without their permission. We take their data only when the user has provided his/her consent. Also, once they provide their data, they will be rewarded with the in-app currency.

Tools Used:

• Android Studio: Android Studio is the official integrated development environment for Google's Android operating system, built on JetBrains' IntelliJ IDEA software and designed specifically for Android development.
  For more information, visit https://developer.android.com/studio/
• Firebase: Firebase is a mobile and web application development platform developed by Firebase, Inc. in 2011, then acquired by Google in 2014. For more information, visit https://firebase.google.com/

Hardware Specifications: An android smartphone enabled with a camera and GPS functionality.

Platform supported by the application:

• Android OS: Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google, based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open source software and designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

References:
Tejas N, Younus Zain, Panimozhi “Cloud Based Public Transport Information System for Android Devices Using Crowd Sourcing” International Journal of Innovative Research in Computer and Communication Engineering, Vol. 3, Issue 5, May 2015.
http://www.ijircce.com/upload/2015/may/73_31_CLOUD_new.pdf

Faculty Guide:
Dr. T. V. Rajnikanth (Professor at SNIST, Hyderabad).
Profile link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_ih7q5C6Dcjb1dGd3lmb00tTVU/view

Team Members:

• S.BHARATH KUMAR (sathuribharathbrothers1234@gmail.com)
• A.SRIMANTH (srimanth98@gmail.com)
• CH.VINEETH (chepurivineeth@gmail.com)
• P.SIDDHARDHA (pandidrisiddhardha@gmail.com)

Note: This project idea is contributed for ProGeek Cup 2.0- A project competition by GeeksforGeeks.