Public Bus Tracking System – Consistency Check and its Usefulness to the Commuters and Researchers in Developing Countries

Abstract

Global Positioning System in buses is installed with the purpose of tracking them and reducing the commuters’ waiting time to improve the perceived reliability of the service. But, inconsistencies of the tracking application may hamper the purpose and increase the disutility of the app as well as the bus service. Therefore, this paper firstly aims to check the consistency of the app from the users’ perspective by comparing the app data and manual data collected at the bus stops; secondly, compares the discrepancy in the reliability estimation by applying the measures recommended by Federal Highway Authority on the two datasets. Three bus routes in a metropolitan city of India, with GPS facilities installed, were selected as case study. It is observed that the waiting time of the app users is similar to those not using it. The discrepancy observed in reliability estimation is more than 50% for some bus routes.