Data analysis of transit systems using low-cost IoT technology

The rapid increase of modern wireless technology opens the door for several new applications using the Internet of Things (IoT) technology. In an educational environment, students depend on the transit bus system for their daily routine and there is a high demand of people to be served by buses around university campuses in the United States of America. Often times, the members of university communities find themselves waiting for a significant amount of time for a bus to arrive at the bus station. Universities have numerous bus stops as well as routes on which riders can use for travel. Several of these bus stops are covered by WiFi capabilities, and usually students are checking their smart phones while waiting for bus arrival. In order to monitor the quality of transit buses and passengers' services, we design, develop, and demonstrate a low cost IoT system that detects the majority of the riders on the bus system at each station. In this paper, the IoT devices collect, analyze and archive transit and passenger data (e.g., waiting times) to Cloud Storage from each bus station. The goal is to improve the passenger's experience by refining the current infrastructure in place, focusing on better planning and increasing bus ridership through better scheduling. By collecting such data (e.g., waiting times), the performance of the bus system can be further analyzed and suggest changes to a route in order to achieve a more efficient and sustainable urban transportation system.

现代无线技术的快速发展为物联网（IoT）技术的一些新应用打开了大门。在教育环境中，学生的日常生活依赖公交运输系统，而且在美国的大学校园周围，有大量的人需要公交服务。很多时候，大学社区的成员会发现自己要在公交站等待很长时间才能等到公交车。大学有许多公交站点以及乘客可以使用的公交线路。其中一些公交站点覆盖了WiFi，并且学生通常会在等车时查看他们的智能手机。为了监测公交运输和乘客服务的质量，我们设计、开发并展示了一种低成本的物联网系统，该系统能够检测公交系统在每个站点的大部分乘客。在本文中，物联网设备从每个公交站收集、分析并将运输和乘客数据（例如等待时间）存档到云存储中。目标是通过完善现有的基础设施，专注于更好的规划以及通过更合理的调度来增加公交乘客数量，从而改善乘客的体验。通过收集此类数据（例如等待时间），可以进一步分析公交系统的性能，并对线路提出修改建议，以实现一个更高效、更可持续的城市交通系统。