Experiences with a transportation information system that uses only GPS and SMS

Authors:
Ruth E. Anderson;Waylon Brunette;Erica Johnson;Caitlin Lustig;Anthony Poon;Cynthia Putnam;Odina Salihbaeva;Beth E. Kolko;Gaetano Borriello
Affiliations:
University of Washington, Seattle, WA;University of Washington, Seattle, WA;University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC;University of California, Irvine, CA;University of Washington, Seattle, WA;DePaul University, Chicago, IL;University of Washington, Seattle, WA;University of Washington, Seattle, WA;University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Venue:
Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development
Year:
2010

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Abstract

We present our experiences with an SMS-based system for providing transit information based solely on existing cellular and GPS networks. The aim is to permit the development of information services that do not rely on a central authority or complex web hosting. We developed and applied our system to the network of privately-run marshrutka buses in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. However, our goal is to more broadly address issues of ad-hoc shared transportation systems in the developing world. A custom designed GPS-GSM unit is placed on a vehicle, and users can query our server over SMS with their own non-GPS-enabled cell phones. We report on the accuracy of our location naming approach and estimates of bus arrival times. In addition, we summarize interviews with bus drivers and bus riders relating their views of the system and outline directions for future work. Our system is a grassroots solution to the persistent lack of transport information in developing countries.