The GeoGraphics Laboratory at Bridgewater State College has developed a system for tracking fixed route buses and predicting their arrival times at stops. A prototype is in place to serve the buses of Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority.
See the system in action!
Real-time location data of the buses is gathered by Automatic Vehicle Location Mobile Data Terminal Units. It is transmitted to the operations center via radio, then relayed over the Internet to the GeoGraphics Laboratory where it is processed by a tracking algorithm. The tracking algorithm watches as buses enter and leave zones along their routes and estimates how many minutes until the arrival of the next bus. The Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) results, presented on the web server, are accessible from Internet-connected PCs, handheld computers with wireless Internet access, and displayed in the Hyannis Intermodal Terminal.
Kirk Dand's file transfer program retrieves newly-received vehicle location data from Microsoft SQL Server at CCRTA's operations center every 60 seconds and sends it to the GeoGraphics Laboratory's web server at Bridgewater State College. The other end of the program, running on the web server, transfers the data to the presentation software.
The presentation program, written by Brendan Kidwell, runs on top of consumer off-the-shelf software (COTS). It utilizes Maptitude for the Web from Caliper Corporation, a GIS application, to perform spatial analysis and predictions on the data, Microsoft SQL Server for data storage, and Microsoft Internet Information Server to publish the data. A paper explaining this software is available here.