Abstract

Bus Transportation service and the automated operation and smart interaction system between passenger and operator is paramount in today’s age of information and communication technology.  ‘Driver Dai’ is an android app that facilitates interaction between a passenger and bus operator giving the real time location of a bus along with the information regarding the details of the bus, its operators, destination, and route. Knowing the information, the passenger can reserve a seat in the bus and board the bus as it approaches the passenger’s location. The bus operator updates the seat information, which in terms helps the passenger to reserve the free seats. The real time tracking of the bus saves time as well as effort in boarding a public bus. Rather than manual reservation of bus ticket in the ticket counter, this application helps passengers reserve the bus in current service.

Background Theory

In current context of Nepal, the challenges associated with boarding a suitable public bus is a hassle. The location, seat availability and arrival timing of the bus is also unknown. If a passenger knows all these aspects, it will be much easier for them to board the bus. Specially, for boarding bus in the highway areas it is rather tedious. A passenger has to wait for the bus. The arrival time of the bus is unknown. Driver Dai is an android app that helps the passengers to interact with bus operators. The bus detail including bus number, its operators, destination, and route is given by the app. Driver Dai will give the real time location of a bus thus helps the passenger to know about the bus coming its way. Knowing this the passenger can reserve a seat in the bus and board the bus as it approaches the passenger’s location. This saves time as well as effort in boarding a public bus. Rather than manual reservation of bus ticket in the ticket counter, our app helps passengers to board the active bus. A passenger will be able to reserve a seat in active bus using our app. Taking all these into consideration we have developed an app (instead of a manually buying ticket) to perform the same operations. This saves time and effort for boarding a bus. Driver Dai is an app which is based on the Android technology to provide mobile based accessibility. It is developed using Java in Android Studio. There are two modes for using this app, one mode is for the bus operators and the other is for passengers. The bus operators provide a virtual design of the bus such that the passenger can reserve desired and empty seats beforehand.

Problem statement

Bus ticket booking during the recent context has various difficulties to the passengers as well as the bus operators. Manual ticket booking reduced the scope of customers to choose different options based on their travel criterion. It also increased the franchising cost for the bus operators. At the same time, the bus operators also find it difficult to monitor their bus seat filling information. Many bus service organizations do not have their own online bus ticket booking system.  Manual reservation of tickets is a tedious process as it may consist of long queue and also the ticket availability is not confirmed. Passengers frequently have to wait for the bus to arrive in their location. Driver Dai is a total internet ticketing operations offering the benefit of total in-house management of bus schedules, ticket bookings, ticket sales and report generation. The app allows travelers to track the reserved bus from their android app.

Objectives

• To provide hassle free bus service to the user with real time bus tracking.
• To act as bridge between passenger and bus operator for convenient travel in systematic approach.

Scope of Project and Applications

• Systematic  and easier reservation of bus seats

The interface provides well managed reservation of bus seats. People can reserve a seat in the bus by simply using our app and commission free. The costs will be ideal and unambiguous.

• Real time bus tracking

Driver Dai tracks the location of the bus in real time via GPS. This further makes it convenient for the passengers to approach the bus.

• Seat reservation in active bus

Our app helps the reservation of seat in active buses rather than pre-buying the tickets and waiting for the bus.

Authors

Benish Maharjan, Buddhi Raj Poudel, Dilli Raj Chalise and Dipesh Poudel