Smart E-Ticketing System for Public Transport Bus

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
Buses are the most popular and convenient mode of transportation in India. More than 1.6
million buses are registered in India, and the public bus sector operates 170,000 buses
carrying roughly 70 million people per day.

As per the details of expenditure on transport, buses are the most preferred mode of
public transport in both rural and urban India, followed by auto rickshaws. In order to
serve these many commuters daily, the ticketing facilities available in the existing system
of public bus transport is manual i.e. purchasing the ticket from the conductor. However,
bus transportation has not been able to meet the needs of the growing travel demand. The
problem with bus services is that they are not reliable.

Several problems exist in the public bus transport sector which includes wastage of
too much paper, use of cash for purchasing tickets, etc. Some other common problems
faced by commuters in bus transport are undue waiting time, inadequate time for getting
tickets, non-refund of balances, negligence of providing seat to other passengers, etc.

To overcome all the above-mentioned problems, we have proposed a more

advanced system for smart cities which provides e-ticketing and seat allotment facilities
for the civilians. The problem of paper wastage can be overcome by the use of E-tickets
whereas the use of cash can be reduced by using Digital wallet.

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CHAPTER 2

E-TICKETING FOR SMART CITIES

E-Ticket abbreviated as electronic ticket is the digital form of paper ticket. An e- ticket
system is a more efficient and reliable method of ticket entry, processing and marketing
and used for companies in the airline, railways and other transport and entertainment
industries. E-Ticket is usually referred as a travel card or a transit card. In our proposed
system E-Ticketing is used for public transport bus.

E-ticketing systems have achieved worldwide renown and public transport can
surely benefit from these technological advances [1]. E-Ticket will contain the following
information like ticket number, bus number, departure location, destination location, fare,
number of tickets, etc. E-Ticket will be generated in smart phones or as an SMS in feature
phones.

2.1 Seat Allotment:

Seat Allotments in the public transport are used to designate a certain pre-
negotiated seat which has been bought out and held by a commuter. Allotments can be
purchased for a specific period of time such as a whole route, and then can be allotted to
other commuters.

2.2 Need for E-ticketing and seat allotment:

An e-ticket offers many advantages for commuters, including security, flexibility,

cost and convenience. At the same time, it also provides the standard assurances of the
traditional paper ticket, such as seating choice and other flexibilities. There’s also less risk
of stolen or lost tickets for the ticket buyers.

The following are the features that describe the need of e-tickets:

 Commuters can book and buy the e-ticket online, without intervention of conductor [2].
 Commuters can pay for the e-ticket using no cash but by digital wallet [3].
 If you buy a physical ticket, there’s a risk of this getting lost. The great thing about e-
and mobile tickets is you have 100% access to it.
 The e-ticket is securely maintained in the electronic form [4].

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 Smart E-Ticketing System for Public Transport Bus

 The commuter does not need to carry the tickets in hand.

 Last but not least, buying an e-ticket or mobile ticket online reduces your carbon
footprint and it’s the little steps that make a difference in a sustainable future.

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 Smart E-Ticketing System for Public Transport Bus

CHAPTER 3

LITERATURE REVIEW

In this section, we will survey in brief on the various literatures which are based on the
ICT usage in public transport towards tracking of bus.

In the research papers, we have observed that GPS technology is been employed
for tracking of bus location and scheduling. This has been achieved in some cities in India
(e.g.: Bengaluru) where the government has developed a GPS enabled Bus Rapid Transit
System to meet the transportation needs for increasing the security and reliability of the
system. BRTS aims to combine the capacity and speed of a metro with the flexibility,
lower cost and simplicity of a bus system [5].

Other countries like Canada use refillable smart cards, provide one week passes or
offer electronic systems for payment. In the city of Calgary, the users would download an
app in their smart phones and create an account which would allow them to purchase a
fare that would activate upon boarding a bus. When required to show their ticket, mobile
users would simply show the officers a virtual ticket on their smart phone [6].

In Israel, people can purchase a Rav Kav card. A personal Rav Kav card has all the
passenger’s personal details. Also tourists can purchase an anonymous Rav Kav card. The
Rav Kav can be used to pay for the transportation of several passengers and can be used
within a region unless specifically reloaded for the desired routes [7].

Figure 1: Rav Kav Card

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 Smart E-Ticketing System for Public Transport Bus

Also in other research papers, security of the system and its database is another
important aspect. Software problems that occur in distributed database systems may
involve data management, transaction management, and database recovery [8]. The
proposed architecture incorporates the needs of the metropolitan transportation system
with persevering the security requirements of the user and enhancing the privacy of
commuters.

Research was also done on the privacy concerns for collecting the personal
information of the user and then aggregating and centralizing of information. User account
used in public transportation enables the tracking of the user with data tracking which is
stored on the central server [9].

So far from the literature review, it is clear that GPS and other technologies are
deployed towards the cashless public transportation system. So with the consideration of
these technologies, we have proposed a novel system, in which the GPS enabled device is
within the bus and this device would help us to know the bus-id and the route information
and to each GPS enabled device, id is given for tracking the location and bus-id.

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CHAPTER 4

PROBLEMS IN EXISTING SYSTEM

Transport problems are not common for all the places, but they exist everywhere. Further,
transport problems are mainly due to non-availability of alternative modes and inadequate
transport services. Even though the public sector transport buses have been providing
fairly satisfactory services, there is a feeling that these services are unreliable.

Following are some of the most common problems in the existing system faced by the
commuters:

4.1 Undue waiting time at bus stops:

The commuters are unaware of the time they have to wait for a bus to arrive. This
unnecessary waiting for buses is a waste of time and causes considerable dissatisfaction to
the commuters. Moreover, it is clear that more waiting time causes overcrowding. The
inefficient time schedules result in unequal intervals between buses which makes
commuters wait for an unknown amount of time.

4.2 Inadequate time for getting tickets:

Sometimes, the buses are so crowded and the travel distance is so small that getting
a ticket results into chaos. Finding the conductor and getting a ticket in crowded buses is
the biggest problem in peak hours.

4.3 Non-refund of balance:

In some cases, it is possible that both the commuter and conductor do not have
change. In these cases, the conductor may not refund the balance to the commuter.
Moreover, most of the commuters do not co-operate with the conductor by tendering the
exact amount of fare.

For instance, giving a fifty Rupees currency note for a twelve-thirteen Rupee ticket
may irritate the conductor, especially when the bus is overcrowded.

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4.4 Negligence to provide seats to other passengers:

The commuters sometimes have to travel all the way standing in the buses. There
is no particular algorithm followed for seat allotment i.e. the commuters do not get a seat
on time basis. Some commuters stand throughout their journey while some sit as soon as
they board the bus based on availability of seats.

4.5 Excessive waste of paper:

The amount of paper required to generate bus tickets is far too high as almost all
the passengers take tickets except those having passes. This results in excessive paper
waste which can be stopped by generating e-tickets.

4.6 Use of cash:

Passengers buy tickets using cash which contradicts the system of cashless
economy. There is no other way to buy tickets from the conductor except of cash. This
opposes the initiative of the Indian government to go cashless.

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CHAPTER 5

PROPOSED SYSTEM
By considering the problems from the existing system, a more advanced system has been
proposed. In the new system the user will be asked to register once at the start. The
application proposed will allow users to book bus tickets and allot them a seat if available.
This will be applicable once the user connects to the device installed at bus stops. The
range of the device would be only within the bus stop limits. Once the user is connected to
the device, the user will be asked to provide the destination while the source will be auto-
filled by taking into consideration the bus stop whose device the user is connected to.

Our application will then provide the user with a list of buses for their route from
that bus-stop. The list will also contain the information about seat availability and the
expected time for the bus to reach that particular bus stop. Based on the information the
user has to decide the bus he/she wishes to travel with. The expected time of the bus will
be calculated by using the GPS enabled device which will be with the bus conductor.

If the user books a ticket in a bus where the seat is available, the user will be
allocated a seat. But if the seat is not available and the user still wishes to travel by that
bus, then a novel algorithm is proposed for allocating seat to the user which enables less
waiting time in this algorithm the user will be placed in a queue based on the time of
booking the ticket. The first user in the queue will be given the seat of the first passenger
getting vacant and so on.

This will result in less waiting time for majority of the users. Appropriate amount
for the ticket will be deducted directly from the user’s account which will be provided by
him at the time of registering so as to support cashless system and an acknowledgement
will be sent to the user’s app which would contain information such as ticket number,
source and destination of the route, time of booking the ticket and the seat allocated to that
user. If user changes his/her mind, they can cancel the ticket too.

Considering a case where the user does not have a smart phone, then the user can
book the ticket with the same device installed at the bus-stop. A normal SMS would be
send to the user which will act as a ticket.

The bus conductor will now just have to verify the ticket and the seat number.

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CHAPTER 6

IMPLEMENTATION

For implementation purpose, an application needs to be developed which will have a basic
registration page asking for user personal information and a login page if the user changes
his/her phone or uninstalls the application. The user won’t be asked to login every time
except for the cases described above.

Once the user logs in, our system will check whether the user is connected to a
legitimate device installed at any bus-stop and furthermore allow user to book the ticket.
Based on the device to which the user is connected our system would detect the source of
the user. When the user books the ticket by providing the destination, an appropriate
amount will be deducted from the user’s account and an acknowledgment E-ticket would
be sent to the application

All the above information would be stored in a database which would be real-time
i.e. altering every time the user reaches the destination the data entry of that particular seat
would be changed. As we know that the same bus can be used as different bus route
numbers (e.g. bus no 3 can be later changed to be used as 137 for some different route)
and hence every entry of the bus will be based on both the bus number plate and its
number.

For seat allocation of user’s when the seat is not vacant, a novel algorithm is proposed.

Implementation is explained using figure 2.

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 Smart E-Ticketing System for Public Transport Bus

Figure 2: Flowchart of proposed system

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Figure 3: Block diagram of proposed system

6.1 Novel algorithm for seat allotment:

Step 1: Queuing

Our system will place the user in a queue on the basis of the time of their ticket
booking (Considering the FCFS method).

Step 2: Allocating Seat

Inspecting the database, seat of the passenger having the nearest destination will be
allocated to the first user in the queue. If the first user’s destination is nearer to the first
passenger whose seat is getting vacant, then the second passenger in the queue will be
allocated the passenger’s seat.

Step 3: Releasing

As soon as the user reaches the destination its entry would be released and replaced
with the other user (if any).

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6.2 Diagrammatic representation of seat allocation:

The passenger waiting at the bus stop will get the list of buses according to his/her route.

Figure 4: Passengers waiting for the bus

The below diagrams show the availability of seats in bus A and B respectively.

Figure 5: Bus seat structure

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 Smart E-Ticketing System for Public Transport Bus

The passenger books a ticket of bus B as the ETA of bus B is lesser than that of A. The
seat no 2 of bus B will be vacant in minimum time and based on our novel algorithm
passenger will be allotted seat no 2.

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CHAPTER 7

RESULT ANALYSIS

Figure 6: Destination entry

Figure 7: Available buses and arrival time

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Figure 8: Generated E-Ticket

By implementing this project, many disadvantages in current ticketing systems is rectified
and thereby supporting the cashless economy. Amount is debited directly from the user’s
bank account to overcome the change issue as shown in figure 8.

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CHAPTER 8

CONCLUSION

In summary, this project aims to give an agile and smooth ticketing experience and an
organized way for seat allotment to the commuters. If implemented it will give a new
ticketing experience to commuters as well as contribute a part of cashless economy. With
the growing popularity of smart-phones and mobile wallets this is the right time to adapt
this technology so that people will become familiar with it and this will improve the
overall services provided to passengers.

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REFERENCES

[1] Macià Mut-Puigserver, M. Magdalena Payeras-Capellà, Josep-Lluís Ferrer-Gomila,

Arnau Vives-Guasch, Jordi Castellà-Roca, “A survey of electronic ticketing applied to
transport”, Computers & Security, Volume 31, Issue 8, 2012, ISSN 0167-4048,
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167404812001058
[2] Bao, Feng. "A scheme of digital ticket for personal trusted device." 2004 IEEE 15th
International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications
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[3] Girinivas, N. M., et al. "Local Train E-Ticket Reservation System using Wallet
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[5] Harter, Gregor, et al. "Sustainable urbanization: the role of ICT in city development."
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[6] City of Calgary gets on board with mobile transit payments, Published on: March 15,
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smartphone-1.4025953
[7] Go Israel-https://new.goisrael.com/article/218
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[10]Kazi, Sanam, et al. "Smart e-ticketing system for public transport bus", International
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