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Design of Public Transportation Navigation System on Android Wear Device

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DOI: 10.1109/SIET.2017.8304169

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2017 International Conference on Sustainable Information Engineering and Technology (SIET)
Design of Public Transportation Navigation System
on Android Wear Device
Komang Candra Brata1, Aryo Pinandito2, Mahardeka Tri Ananta3, Nurizal Dwi Priandani4
Mobile, Game, and Media Research Group1,2,3,4, Computer Science Department1,3,4, Information System Department2
Computer Science Faculty, Universitas Brawijaya
Malang, Jawa Timur, Indonesia
k.candra.brata@ub.ac.id1, aryo@ub.ac.id2, deka@ub.ac.id3, priandani@ub.ac.id4
Abstract—The application of information technology in the
field of navigation in public transportation and the popularity of
the Android operating system on mobile devices led to a variety
of mobile app that is aiming to facilitate users in navigating with
their desired mode of transportation. Google Maps application,
which is provided by Android-based mobile devices, is currently
able to provide information and navigation on city’s public
transit although its availability is still limited to certain areas or
towns. Its limitation brings up mobile device navigation
applications to be built by local developers to provide
information and navigation in using public transport in such
area. When people are navigating on a public transit by using
mobile application, they may experience difficulties in operating
their mobile devices or are not allowed to use their smartphone
during the trip. Finding stops or interchanges to take or how long
they have to stay on the line before they have to get off or switch
to another line becomes more difficult. This research proposed a
design and evaluated a new input interaction method that utilizes
Android Wear-based wearable devices in implementing an
intuitive local public transport navigation system to overcome the
problems. The proposed system is expected to provide step-by-
step assistance in public transport navigation by utilizing
Android Wear-based wearable devices such as an Android
smartwatch and its embedded sensors. Experimental results show
that the interface simplification of a step-by-step directions
mobile application into a wearable device is feasible for future
implementation, but they may have different usability level
compared to a traditional mobile map application.
Keywords—Transportation; Navigation; Wearable; Android
I. INTRODUCTION
Navigation in public transportation and the popularity of
the Android operating system on mobile devices led to a
variety of mobile application that is aiming to facilitate users in
navigating with their desired mode of transportation. A good,
well maintained public transportation helps the economic
development of a city as well as the well-being of its citizens.
Smooth travel movement of public transit also allows users to
cut the traveling time.
Google Maps application can provide information and
navigation on city’s public transportation although its data
availability is still limited to several areas and big cities [1]. Its
limitation motivates local developers to bring up domestic
public transportation applications that provide a particular
information and routing segment when people are using public
transportation mode for a specific area [2][3][4].
978-1-5386-2182-0/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
In 2016, a Greater Malang local mobile application namely
"Angkot Malang Apps" was developed. This app focused on
providing information about one of public city transportation
mode called "Angkutan Kota" or simply abbreviated into the
word "Angkot." The mobile application provides routing
segments for Greater Malang area. This app allows users to
have a recommendation of Angkot route and its transit or route
points. It also provides a transfer if necessary by only using an
Android smartphone [5]. Since Angkot Malang Apps is still in
the early development stage, we found that for daily use, this
app still lacks in usability and intuitiveness of interaction
between user and smartphone. When people are navigating on
public transport by utilizing mobile device application on a
smartphone, they require keeping the phone in one’s hands and
keep seeing the screen at all times during the trip. Finding stops
or interchanges to take or how long they have to stay on the
particular line before they have to get off or switch to another
line becomes more difficult.
A new trend in the mobile device market shows an
increasing interest in a wearable device as an additional
platform to practically enhance the quality of life in a way that
smartphones cannot achieve. There are some situations where
using an application on a smartphone or merely operating a
mobile device such as tablet, or laptop computers were not
allowed or be possible during traveling. However, operating
wearable devices, such as a smartwatch, allowing user to use a
mobile application indirectly.
The emergence of wearables introduces a new opportunity
to leverage the availability of these devices to create new
interactions methods and offer more possibilities beyond the
usage of smartphones. Wearables are low-cost and independent
devices that are targeting a personal daily use [6]. Smartwatch
plays a significant role in these contexts because it can sense,
collect, and upload physiological user data like location,
acceleration, etc. Wearables can also help users to perform
many useful microtasks, such as checking incoming text
messages and viewing several critical information. Practically,
wearing a smartwatch may deliver more convenient and natural
experiences. It can reach its full potential when this wearable
device can collaborate with a smartphone that is often carried
away in user pockets or bags [7]. These simplicities make
smartwatch become popular and more widely deployed,
ranging from navigation support [8], speech and voice
exercises for patients with Parkinson’s disease [9], to the
utilization of smartwatch as an educational tool [10]. This
385
research intends to design new interaction scenarios that utilize
smartwatch wearable as a secondary mobile device that could
be used as a viewport and remote control of a smartphone
application.
In this research, individual responses to the usage of our
previous map based public transport application and our new
proposed design application with smartwatch support were
explored. Next, empirical studies that compare the usability of
a traditional map-based navigation application with the
proposed smartwatch step-by-step scenarios were performed.
The primary objective of this research is evaluating the
usability level of several step-by-step public transportation
navigation scenarios that involves a wearable device and
compare the results with a traditional map-based mobile
application interface.
II. RELATED WORKS
Some research relates with transportation and navigation
system. Some of them involve mobile applications and
wearable devices in the implementation. In previous works,
there are several applications and research associated with the
navigation system of public transportation [5] [8] [11].
As previously stated, we had developed an Android mobile
application namely "Angkot Malang" [5]. The app allows users
to find possible public transportation that enables a user in
getting somewhere in Greater Malang. The application uses a
Modified-Path Planning and Haversine method to yield route
information and traveling recommendation based on user’s
current location and user’s intention to a particular place with
minimum transfer possibilities.
Chow et al. [8] proposed a cloud platform that utilizes real-
time travel information, a mobile application that involves
wearable devices in a smart public transportation system in
Hong Kong. This platform is capable of retrieving the required
data automatically from the cloud, reporting real-time public
transportation information and provide their users with
personalized recommendations in using public transits. Their
platform was capable of automatically retrieve the required
data from the cloud, reporting real-time public transportation
information, and provides a personalized recommendation in
using the public transportation system. Practically, the system
was able to inform the user about the estimated journey time,
walking distance, traveling cost, the number of transfers
required, and some recommendations. However, the developed
application was unable to show journey route on a digital map.
There is a mobile application as in [11], which implements
a smart navigation system for the commuter line in Greater
Jakarta area, Indonesia. The mobile application is capable of
providing data about commuter line timetables, arranging user's
journey for using the line. It also includes line transit and
transfer information of the trip as well as finding the way on
how to reach the destination and the estimated journey time
and even the travel costs. Besides, the application can visualize
the route information in an easy-to-understand format for their
user. The emergence of wearable technology opens the
opportunity to enhance the quality of health [12] and people's
daily life.
386
However, the public transportation system in developed
countries is more organized and more reliable compared to the
general public transportation system in several cities in
Indonesia. Therefore, developing navigation system of public
transportation in Indonesia is somewhat challenging when
public transportation is unreliable.
III. METHODOLOGY
A. Requirement Analysis
Based on problems described in the introductions, several
functional requirements need to resolute. The Android
application should provide input and output mechanisms in
providing public transportation navigation itinerary service
from user’s current location to a user-specified place as the
destination. The app should offer steps that need to be taken to
the specified destination by walking and only using public
transportation. However, due to the constraints, which are
given in using an Android smartphone device in performing
public transport navigation, this research proposes an extension
to the current navigation application on an Android Wear-
based device such as an Android smartwatch.
Basically, taking public transportation to a particular
destination is accomplished in a three steps scenario. First,
people specify the destination to go. Second, they need to know
the possible public transportation line to take, and if required,
they will have to determine the location where they have to
switch to another line before they eventually arrive at the
destination. Lastly, they create a travel plan and perform the
actions as stated in the itinerary.
Extending an Android smartphone application functionality
into a wearable device means that several input/output
communications between the Android application and the
wearable device will be performed. This research proposes a
design of an Android Wear application that extends the
functionality of an existing Android application. The app is
currently able to provide public transportation traveling
itinerary from user’s current location to several destinations in
Greater Malang area and display the traveling plan along with
its route on a map.
By extending the mobile application into a wearable device,
the use on the wearable side is supposed to be able to obtain
user’s current location from the wearable device GPS sensor
and locate several stops of public transportation nearby as
starting points. The wearable device application should be able
to obtain input related to user’s desired destination. Both user’s
current location and destination will be treated as mobile
application’s input to calculate. Hence the traveling itineraries
for the user to take could be obtained.
As the wearable device application obtain the traveling
plan, it should be able to provide detailed information
regarding the itinerary. It also supposed to be able to display
the details on a visual basis using maps, hence allowing the
user to plan and review the plan before they are taking the real
attempt. Lastly, when users are ready to travel and begin to
navigate, they may start the navigation process and put the
wearable device application into navigating state.
 While the wearable device application is in navigating C. User Experience Design
state, it will guide the user through the itinerary that contains
several checkpoints. The application should be able to provide The requirement analysis phase yield to a description of
information about the upcoming checkpoint such as user’s how a user navigation system in public transportation that
current location related to the checkpoint in the itinerary. When utilizes a smartphone and wearable device is used. The system
a user location is near to the forthcoming checkpoint, the usage is divided into three main phases, i.e., location input,
wearable device is supposed to notify the user so that they will itinerary review, and navigation guiding phase. The phases
not miss the checkpoint. It should be able to guide the users stages and how they are activated are shown in Fig. 2.
through the traveling itineraries until they eventually arrive at
their destination.
B. System Design
The system was designed to be implemented on two
platforms, i.e., an Android smartphone and an Android Wear
smartwatch as a wearable device. The wearable device is
responsible for obtaining a user’s current location and a
particular place as the traveling destination. Both location-
related information is fed into the Android mobile app to get
the traveling plan to a user-specified location by using public
transportation. Then, the mobile application will compute and
return the traveling itinerary to the wearable device application
for further usage.
The data used in communication between Android
smartphone and wearable device were represented in JSON
format. The Android Wear smartwatch is also responsible for
representing the returned itinerary in JSON format into a usable
Fig. 2. Android Wear application states
presentation, interaction, and experience.
In the first phase, the wearable device is supposed to be
able to obtain user’s current location from its GPS sensor in the
background without any interruptions to the user interactions
with the wearable device. The destination location information
will be obtained from user input. Users are allowed to provide
destination information to the wearable device from one of the
following methods: voice input, touch keyboard, text-swiping,
or pinpoint a location on a digital map. The screen flow for this
phase user interaction is depicted in Fig. 3.

Fig. 1. Communication design between Android Wear and mobile app

Google introduces Android Wear platform in their Android

ecosystem as the platform to develop a mobile application on
wearable devices such as a smartwatch. In two-way
communication between an Android and Wearable application,
both applications have to be connected to the GoogleApiClient
as the integration point to Google Play service that provides the
Wearable data layer. If both application components, which are
the wearable and mobile application, have been connected to
the GoogleApiClient, then data communication can be
performed through sendMessage() method that is implemented
in MessageApi class. However, the application component in
mobile device side that receives data from wearable is a
WearableListenerService instead of an Android Activity. The
architecture on how an Android Wear application on a
smartwatch device communicates with an Android smartphone Fig. 3. Screen flow design in Location Input phase
application in this research is depicted in Fig. 1. Both action Several points of interest nearby a given pinpoint location
command and its related data, which are encoded in JSON or several destinations name that has similarity to the given
format, is considered as messages. Both sides have to decode keyword will be shown on the screen. Hence the user will be
the obtained JSON messages to retrieve the data. able to confirm which exact destination they would like to go.
During this phase, the wearable device application tries to find

387
user’s current location information from the wearable device’s
GPS sensor in the background.
When a user confirms the destination, the wearable device
application will talk to the mobile application to obtain several
possible traveling recommendations between the confirmed
origin and destination using public transit. The wearable will
display the itineraries on the screen for the user to review. The
wearable device application is entering the Itinerary Review
phase while it presents the itinerary. Users may look at the
itinerary as a sequence of location checkpoints. One may see
the details of checkpoints along with its location on a digital
map before they are starting the journey. If they don’t see any
suitable recommendations, then they may start over from the
beginning and choose another destination. Part of the screen
flow design of the wearable device application in this phase is
depicted in Fig. 4.
It is challenging to presents long-listed checkpoints of an
itinerary on a relatively small screen area of a smartwatch. The
interaction was limited to a small rounded or square space,
hence making it difficult to display all of the itinerary
information and details on one screen. However, this research
manages to limit the interaction with lots of content into
vertical scrolling to avoid confusion when interacting with the
application.
Fig. 4. Screen flow design in Itinerary Review phase
The wearable device application will enter the Navigation
Guiding phase. In each checkpoint, the app will silently
monitor the distance between user’s current location and the
currently active checkpoint. The wearable device application
will periodically check whether a user is entering a particular
388
area to the checkpoint or not. This process is commonly called
by geofencing and can be done by regularly reading user’s
current location from device's GPS sensor, calculate the
distance in the background, and change its state based on the
location. However, in the real implementation of the prototype,
the distance between user's current location and the active
checkpoint could be estimated using Haversine [13].
The wearable application will provide feedback to the user
by putting vibrations to the wearable device while showing
information such as the distance of the user to the currently
active checkpoint as a notification form or toast. At this point, a
user has an option to snooze the notification and continue the
journey. When the information snoozed, the geofencing
process will continue.
The wearable device application will notify a user when
they have entered a particular area of the checkpoint. This
research is checking whether a user has entered a specific area
for a checkpoint by merely calculating user's distance from the
checkpoint in a circular form. However, a checkpoint has
several geofenced areas. When a user is entering a geofence
area of a checkpoint, the user will be notified until they were
quite nearby to the designated checkpoint. Several screen flows
of user interaction in the navigation phase of the wearable app
are depicted in Fig. 5.
Fig. 5. Screen flow design in Navigation phase
When a user is nearby to a checkpoint, the application will
ask the user to confirm whether they were at the currently
active checkpoint or not. Confirming a checkpoint means that
they are ready to continue the journey and move to the next
checkpoint in the itinerary. These guiding processes will
continue until the user arrives at the final checkpoint as their
final destination. As an addition, the users may see their current
state in the currently active itinerary, and they may also review
their track on the past checkpoints, see the upcoming
checkpoint details, and show their current location on the map.
Therefore, this will keep them on the track on their journey
while navigating.
D. Evaluation
This research was first evaluating on how a wearable
application could communicate with the mobile application. A
simple prototype of a wearable application that contains several
user interface controls has been developed. In the mobile
application side, an existing public transportation application
functionalities were extended into service components that
provide the required navigation information for the wearable
application as described in Fig. 2. The communication test
involves two test cases as follows:
1. The wearable application provides a location in
latitude and latitude value and the mobile application
should return several Point of Interests and their
geolocation information.
2. The wearable application provides a pair of
geolocation for a particular origin and destination and
the mobile application should return several possible
and detailed public transportation itineraries.
However, in both test cases, the data format, which is sent
and received for the test cases, are both in JSON format. The
communication test result shows that by using
GoogleApiClient in both wearable and mobile application, both
applications can communicate and exchange data.
In evaluating the application's screen flow design, the
resulting screen flows needs to be partially implemented or
physically coded. However, as this research is still in the early
stage, the focus is not on how to implement the system, but
evaluating how usable a public transportation navigation
system that involves a wearable device is. Hence, the
experience design of the wearable application was
implemented as a prototype by using Adobe Experience Design
(XD) software. The resulting model was prototyped into Adobe
XD artboards and deployed on an Android Wear smartwatch to
evaluate and measure its usability level.
The required number of participants involved in the
usability testing according to [14] is five participants will
discover as many usability problems as more test participants
will do. Therefore, this research involves only selects five
participants in the usability evaluation process. They were at
least familiar with using the Google Maps application and ever
been using an Android Wear-based application. They were also
experienced and used to ride Angkot in their transportation and
they can confirm the correctness of the itinerary given.
In the evaluation process, participants were asked to
complete several tasks in using the main functionality of the
Android wearable device application. The scenario is outlined
in several tasks in sequential order. The tasks that all
participants should perform and the input values that should be
provided by users to the application as described in Table 1.
389
Mobile application and wearable application were both
evaluated by using the tasks as described in Table 1. The
evaluation process for the tasks was performed once for each
type of the application, i.e., the mobile and wearable
application. The participants were asked to install the extended
version of the public transportation mobile application into
their Android smartphone and they sequentially perform the
tasks. While they were performing the tasks, their performance
on the tasks was observed and any problems occurred or faced
by users were noted. When they had completed all of the tasks,
they were given a smartwatch that already contains the
prototype of the application and they perform the same tasks in
the same manner as they had done in the previous mobile app.
TABLE I. EVALUATION TASKS
Task Task Description
1 Assuming the participants want to go somewhere by using public
transportation, starts the application and explores what they can do in
5 minutes interaction.
2 Plan to go to Landungsari bus station, use voice command input
method to search the destination on the application, and confirm the
Landungsari Terminal as the destinations.
3 Reviews several resulting travel itineraries, see the details, and
display its location on a map.
4 Confirming an itinerary to Terminal Landungsari, start the step-by-
step navigation to Terminal Landungsari, and complete the
navigation.
5 Start over the task of number 2, choose an itinerary, and start
navigating until arriving at the second checkpoint. In the second
checkpoint, review the itinerary and change the itinerary plan to a
place namely Alun-alun. Start navigating to Alun-alun and complete
the navigation.
After the participants complete all the tasks on both mobile
and wearable application, they were asked to answer two
System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire to measure the
usability level of both applications. Participants were asked to
score the ten modified question items as in [15] to measure
several usability parameters as in [16] with one of five
responses that range from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results summary of the SUS questionnaire for both
smartphone and wearable application is described in Table 2.
From the standard deviation (ı) value of the SUS questionnaire
shows that several users have a similar experience in both
applications. The average of SUS score reveals that the
traditional map-based application interface was rated higher
than the proposed step-by-step smartwatch interfaces in this
research, especially in the efficiency of usage. Smartwatch has
limitation in screen size and the way user navigate inside
application menu. Therefore, the interaction method on a
wearable device will inhibit users in performing complex
operations.
 Even though smartphone map-based application has a
significantly better score, it is noteworthy that the participants
will have a faster learning curve to understand the application
flow in the smartwatch application interface due to its
simplicity. In the effectiveness factor, the result shows that
users can perform a navigation task without having a direct
interaction with the mobile application that is installed on their
smartphone.
TABLE II. SUS QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS
Plaforms
Questions (Usability Parameters)
Smartphone
(Mean / (ı))a
Q1: I think I will often use this system
2.00 / (0.71)
(Satisfaction)
Q2: The user interface of in giving the
3.2 / (0.44)
results are easy to understand (Learnability)
Q3: The information provided is very clear
and effective when looking for public 3.2 / (0.44)
transportation routes (Effectiveness)
V. CONCLUSION
The public transportation navigation system based on
Android smartwatch has been implemented to overcome the
lacks in usability and intuitiveness of interaction between user
and smartphone. The proposed system consists of three phases
of usage, such as travel information gathering, itinerary review,
and travel guiding phase. The proposed wearable system can
be categorized as usable regarding efficiency and effectiveness.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Our best gratitude to our friends and colleagues at Mobile,
Game, and Media Research Group, Information System
department, and Computer Science department at the Faculty
Smartwatch
of Computer Science, Universitas Brawijaya.
(Mean / (ı))a
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