1.

0 Introduction
Among all public transportation services, bus service is the major transportation used
by public. Especially in a busy town or city, bus is the most easy, convenient and cheaper
transportation. Various reasons that people take bus instead of driving own vehicle such as
traffic jam, heavy parking fee and lack of parking slot in destination.
However, bus transportation service has very poor transportation information system
nowadays where the passenger couldn’t know the exactly arrival time for a bus, but only know
the scheduled arrival time. These problems occur because current bus service system did not
apply real time tracking technology to track on each buses on the road and also lack of a
platform to update latest bus traffic information to passenger.
Online bus tracking system is a system that records each step of the bus location and
movement in real time by using satellite technology which is Global Positioning System (GPS)
and telecommunication technology which is Global System for Mobile (GSM). GPS is used to
detect the location of the bus according to its latitude and longitude while GSM is used for
sending the data to its database server.
For the system to be run and functioning, these two (2) devices which is GPS and GSM
will be installed at each of the bus that will be track which will communicate with the server to
record its data for analysing and observation purposes that could benefits the passenger, bus
manager and also local authorities.
The passenger could track the current bus location and situation by using their
smartphone for them to acknowledge the bus location and plan their journey better while the
bus manager and local authorities could observe the current bus situation for observation and
planning purposes.

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2.0 Problem Background
One of the problem background of the system is that they only have the journey and
route planner for the passenger to plan their destination using the public transport which is bus.
In this case, the passenger could not know the estimated time arrival (ETA) of the bus and the
location and situation of the bus in real time manner. So, the passenger might have to wait the
bus for long time and this could lead to time wastage and they might somehow impatient and
feel anxious.

3.0 Problem Statement

One of the problem is that the passenger who taking the bus could not able to check the
real-time situation and the movement of the bus. The passenger plan could be affected when
they are late to destination due to unpredictable bus arrival timing. Secondly, bus manager and
local authorities couldn’t able to record the timing and driving pattern of the bus. This is
important for they to measure and having future plan for better bus services and security.
Finally, any emergency that occurs couldn’t managed in proper manner.

4.0 Aim
This is an online system where it tracks the bus movement, situation, location and
estimated time arriving for passenger, bus manager and local authorities for recording, planning
and observation purposes.

5.0 Objectives
 To ease the passenger for giving better planning on their time and journey.
 To create a tracking system for the passenger, bus manager and local authorities’
observation and planning purposes

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6.0 Literature Review
Bus transport mode is still the choices of the people due to low costs. But without the
enhancement of the bus management system, it may not satisfy most of the passenger and might
not encouraging the public to use this type of transportation. Majority of the bus operator in the
country doesn’t implement this type of system and only provides the timetable and schedule
that couldn’t guarantee the accuracy of it. Current given information does not sufficient in order
for bus passenger to plan and manage their daily management.
According to Chai Ching Loong, bus transportation service has very poor transportation
information system nowadays in our country where the passenger couldn’t know the exact bus
time arrival but they only know the bus schedule. This occurs due to the real-time technology
that couldn’t implemented on the bus services that could track on each bus on the road and also
lack of a platform to update latest bus traffic information to bus users. (Loong, 2013)
According to Süleyman Eken and Ahmet Sayar, public transport has become a part of
live since most of the people uses public transport to go from one to another. The passenger
could lose time in transportation because of unwanted waiting and they have the rights to know
where the bus is now and how long time it takes bus to reach bus stop. Since the services
provided to passengers by transport systems are very important. (Eken & Sayar, 2014)
According to Rui Zhang and Wenping Liu, urban is where most of the important
transportation terminate, making the urban transit crucial to efficiently support the mobility of
people and freight. As such, the habitual mobility of people gives rise to the recent observation
that the urban productivity highly depends on the public transport system. (Zhang, 2018)
According to Bassirou Kass´e, Moussa Diallo, and Bamba Gueye, the lack of
punctuality and the amount of time wasted at a bus stop are big concerns for the national society
of transportation. They aim to enhance the communication system by allowing the bus
passengers to know either how many bus stops it remains for a given bus to reach a fixed bus
stop or the estimated distance between a target bus and its position. (Kass´e, et al., 2018)
According to Leeza Singla and Dr. Parteek Bhatia, with the population boom vehicle
population is also rapidly increasing which is further leading to heavy traffic. Optimal solution
to this problem is the use of public transport. However public transport schedules are unreliable
and waiting for bus for long results is waste of time. Main objective of bus tracking systems is
to get real time location coordinates of the bus and the bus arrival time so that passengers can
make better travel decisions and also to make user friendly system to track location and get
approximate bus arrival time. (Singla & Bhatia, 2015)

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 Based on the summarization of the selected researchers, public transport plays an
important role at urban areas due to rapidly increases of population and this could lead to heavy
traffic. Efficient transport management system should be developed and implemented in urban
areas. As such system proposal, online bus tracking system is proposed to ease the urban bus
passenger since most of the people uses public transport to move each one another. Without
this system, most of their time could be lost unnecessarily on unwanted waiting time and this
could lead to loss of daily work productivity.
However, it also shows the successful of a system implementations of online bus
tracking system in neighbouring countries which is Singapore towards the system. It provides
an application which called SBS Transit for bus users in Singapore provided with enhanced
function which it could obtain additional information such as bus type and status. This is useful
for the passenger that needs specific accessibility such as wheelchair accessible and also the
bus capacity. It also provides journey planner where the bus passenger could plan their journey
to each other location. Such this efficient tracking system, it could contribute to good and
efficient daily management on bus passenger since they could track and obtain much
information for their journey to each location.

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6.1 Analysis on SBS Transit, Singapore

Figure 1 – Bus Tracking Screenshot of SBS Transit Application

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Figure 2 – Journey Planner Screenshot of SBS Transit Application

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 The figure above shows the application of SBS Transit where it developed by
ComfortDelGro company registered in Singapore for the implementation on SBS Transit bus
in Singapore. This application were built on mobile application that could be downloaded by
Android, Apple and Blackberry mobile users (SBS Transit Singapore, 2018). This application
could give the bus information which is estimated time arrival, bus current capability and bus
status as shown at figure 1. This application also could plan the journey by entering the input
of landmark or postal code since in Singapore, the postal code describes the area code and the
point of location as shown in figure 2. (Postal Codes, 2014). For instance, if the house block
number is 935, and the location code is 520, it figured as 520934. The postal code in Singapore
totally accurate as exact location based. Therefore, it’s too easy and friendly to use their journey
planner and it shows the best route for the queried location.
There are few types of icon and colour indicator on the application above. One of the
icon is wheelchair icon which indicates the bus accessibility that the passenger could use.
Secondly, it also indicates the orange cone icon which alerts the passenger regarding to bus
additional announcement and information such as traffic issues or breakdown issues by tapping
on that icon. Thirdly, there are colour indicator which indicates the current bus capability that
available in three (3) colours. If the indicator shows the green colour, it means the bus have
many seats while the yellow colour, it shows that the bus seats are full but the passenger could
stand inside the bus and finally, the red colour shows that the bus has limited capability which
the passenger might be squeezed inside the bus.
Finally, even though the bus doesn’t have map embedded, but it describes the bus stop
id number where it might easily be recognized by the bus passenger. The technology that
implemented on the bus system is GPS where it transmits the data through GPS to their
databases for analyzation.

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7.0 Research Question
7.1 Domain Question
a) What are the processes involved when the application user query the bus situation
b) Identify any data that could be obtained from the system that will be useful for
authorities to analyse
c) Identify the system development methodology that will be implemented
7.1 Technical Question
a) Identify the hardware and software that required for the development
b) Determine the data structure and algorithm of the system
c) Describe the benefits of the system towards the passenger, manager and authorities

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7.0 Research Design
In this paper research, observation and survey data gathering method will be applied in
order to obtain the needed information. The observation will be conducted by researchers
through having an observation at the bus stops while survey can be conducted through online
form or paper that shall be distributed to bus passenger at the bus stop.
Observation is one of the research data gathering method where the researcher observes
ongoing behaviour by viewing or recording the behaviours and actions of participant. This
describe as being a systematic observation method where it implies the observation techniques
are sensible and replicable procedure. (Center for Innovation in Research and Teaching, Grand
Canyon University, n.d.) It does not have any experimental or variable are manipulated since
the researcher simply use all of their sense to observe participants. It also doesn’t disturb and
altering the environment or participants in any way. In this situation, the researchers could
observe the pattern of crowds at the bus stops between peak and non-peak hours. They also
could observe the common bus routes that taken by passenger at the most.
Survey also is a part of research data gathering by asking individual question either
through papers, phone call, and even online. Conducting the survey is primary research since
it gathers the data first-hand from its source. This is to gather the opinion and beliefs of selected
groups of individuals and often chosen according to demographic sampling. (US National
Library of Medicine , 2015) In this case, age, income level and occupational is the suitable
demographic to use. In this situation, online and paper forms survey could be conducted with
target of bus passenger while waiting for their respective bus.

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8.0 Personal Reflection
There are many similar researches that could obtain easily through online. Many
researchers realised the problems that occurred when the proposed system doesn’t implement
on other place even in our country itself. Moreover, we are in modern and technology era
nowadays and it should be implemented as possible. This research provides researcher an
understanding and problem that occurs towards the bus passenger. There is some limitation in
this research paper.
In order to use and implement the proposed system, the passenger must have a
smartphone with internet connection in order the application to work. With presence of
attractive, reasonable price and wider coverage of internet connection in Malaysia would be
easier for the proposed system to be implemented.
As conclusion, one alternative that could help the passenger that doesn’t have any
smartphone is to place the information screen on selected bus stops that has crowd. In other
countries, they place it on the bus stops that has frequent passenger but this might costs more
and more over it might be exposed with risks of vandalism. Therefore, this proposed system
should be implemented in order for better ride experience and also it could improve and
contribute to the country for better economics and social.

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