Micro-Navigation for Urban Bus Passengers: Using the Internet of Things to Improve the Public Transport Experience
This addresses navigation challenges for tourists, novices, older people, and those with impairments in urban bus systems, representing an incremental improvement over existing mobile applications.
The paper tackled the complexity of urban bus navigation for disadvantaged users by developing the Urban Bus Navigator (UBN), a reality-aware system that recognizes and tracks physical transport infrastructure, resulting in a positive impact on passenger feelings and reduced barriers during a six-month trial in Madrid.
Public bus services are widely deployed in cities around the world because they provide cost-effective and economic public transportation. However, from a passenger point of view urban bus systems can be complex and difficult to navigate, especially for disadvantaged users, i.e. tourists, novice users, older people, and people with impaired cognitive or physical abilities. We present Urban Bus Navigator (UBN), a reality-aware urban navigation system for bus passengers with the ability to recognize and track the physical public transport infrastructure such as buses. Unlike traditional location-aware mobile transport applications, UBN acts as a true navigation assistant for public transport users. Insights from a six-month long trial in Madrid indicate that UBN removes barriers for public transport usage and has a positive impact on how people feel about public transport journeys.