Internet of things-based framework for public transportation fleet management in the Free State

Abstract

The poor service delivery by the Free State public transportation system inspired us to design a framework solution to improve the current system. This qualitative study focuses on improving the management of the public transportation fleet. One of the most recently developed technologies in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), namely the Internet of Things (IoT), was utilised to develop this framework.

Existing problems were identified through research observations, analyses of the current system, analyses of the current problem areas, as well as participants’ questionnaire answers and recommendations, the participants being the passengers, drivers and vehicle owners.

The framework was developed in two phases, namely a hardware phase that makes use of ICT sensors (e.g. RFID, GPS, GPRS, IR, Zigbee, WiFi), and a software phase that uses an internet connection to communicate with the different ICT devices. The software utilised a Graphic User Interface (GUI) to ensure that the software is user-friendly and addresses possible problems and barriers such as multiple language interfaces and different ICT skills levels. The newly designed framework offers different services and solutions to meet the participants’ needs, such as real-time tracking for public transport vehicles to help passengers manage their departure and arrival times, as well as for vehicle owners to monitor their own vehicles. In turn, vehicle arrival notifications will encourage passengers to be on time so that vehicles will not be delayed unnecessarily. Another feature is counting devices that can be installed inside the vehicles, which will inform vehicle owners how many passengers are being transported by a vehicle. The passenger pre-booking system will support the drivers when planning their trips/routes.

Finally, the framework was designed to fulfil all the participants’ needs that were indicated in the questionnaires in order to achieve the goal of the research study.