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

Published: 13 December 2010 Publication History

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.

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    cover image ACM Other conferences
    ICTD '10: Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development
    December 2010
    479 pages
    ISBN:9781450307871
    DOI:10.1145/2369220
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    Published: 13 December 2010

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    Author Tags

    1. GPS
    2. ICTD
    3. Kyrgyzstan
    4. SMS
    5. developing regions
    6. information services
    7. mobile phones
    8. transportation

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