Article Preview
TopIntroduction
In Colombia, 25% of passengers suffering injuries in traffic accidents are passengers of public transport vehicles (Vargas, 2015). In the case of Perú, 35% of all traffic accidents involve a public transport vehicle (INEI, 2014a). Such data is quite worrisome if we consider the proportion of public vehicles in each of these countries. For Colombia, public passenger transport vehicles represent only 5% of the total (Serrano, 2018). In Perú, public passenger vehicles account for 3% of the total (INEI, 2014b).
In other Latin American countries such as Mexico, Chile and Ecuador, accident data in public transport vehicles is also very worrisome (SCT, 2017; CONASET, 2017; INEC, 2016), because there is also a very low percentage of public transport vehicles and relatively high percentages of accidents where a public transport vehicle is involved.
Considering this information, it is important to establish improvement actions for controlling public transport vehicles, regarding speed and compliance with traffic regulations (main causes of traffic accidents in Colombia (Valbuena, 2011) and other countries (INEI, 2014a; SCT, 2017) in South America). Such actions can be significant for lowering the number of road accidents with injuries and fatalities.
Public transport vehicles of intermediate cities in Colombia, Perú and other developing countries are buses and microbuses, with a capacity ranging from 12 to 20 passengers (INEI, 2014a; Valbuena, 2011). These vehicles share the road with all the other vehicles, which increases the risk of traffic accidents, when compared to Mass Transit Systems (in big cities), which run in exclusive lanes.
In addition to the safety problems for passengers, we considered relevant to review the most important aspects affecting the quality of service, because public transport operators (in developed countries) and the government (in developing countries) are forced to place particular emphasis on monitoring and improvement of public transport services, in an attempt to address the increasing rate of car ownership and the deterioration of traffic conditions, ultimately contributing to sustainable urban mobility (Tyrinopoulos & Antoniou, 2008).
Accessibility, comfort, and safety (Silva & Torres, 2017) are quality factors that can be improved directly with the use of technological tools, within the framework of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), specifically with public transport vehicle tracking services.
In our literature review, the analyzed public transport vehicle tracking systems used ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) to provide the services, but such proposals were not based upon an ITS architecture. An ITS architecture is important for development of properly planned ITS services, featuring a common language for every actor in the services, and the possibility of a less complex and expensive integration and interoperability with other mobility-related services.
In addition, most of the revised proposals present serious coverage and availability issues, because they are based on cellular networks, which have big deficiencies in some areas of intermediate cities and/or when vehicles travel at high speed.
Required budget for service deployment is considered only in some of the reviewed proposals. This budget is very important in our proposal (centered in intermediate cities). Lastly, the service quality of public transport service is not explicitly mentioned in any of the proposals as a relevant aspect to improve.
Considering the mentioned issues in reviewed proposals, our proposal is based upon an ITS architecture, relevant quality factors and technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and LoRa (Long Range) and its protocol LoRaWAN (LoRa Wide Area Network) to ensure adequate service coverage, high availability and low implementation cost.
This research was performed in five stages. In the first stage, we designed the ITS architecture for intermediate cities; in the second stage, we obtained a “detailed-service diagram” based on the ITS architecture; in the third stage, we made a selection of the service's critical communications technology (LoRa); in the fourth stage, we selected the remaining technological components of the service and obtained the “Network diagram” for the service. Finally in the fifth stage, we designed the service for Popayán, a Colombian intermediate city.
We selected the LoRa technology after an analysis of related technologies such as LPWA (Low Power Wide Area) and technologies used for V2X (Vehicle to anything) communication, such as C-V2X (Cellular Vehicle-to-everything) and DSRC (Dedicated Short-Range Communications).