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Intelligent transportation systems are aimed to promote the efficiency and security of transportation systems by applying Information and communication technology and management strategies purposefully. These systems include the presentation of existing information to the passengers, facilitation and acceleration of transportation, precise, comprehensive and efficient management and control, the real-time of traffic and appropriate accountability for the emergency needs (Chen, 2011; Wang, 2006; Cheslow, Hatcher & Hsin, 1993).
The studies which are done in the field of ITS are mainly emphasized on urban intelligent transportation systems in order to determine congestion, traffic flow control, routing and so on; and they are less emphasized on rural transportation. Meanwhile, the efficient, accurate and practical service presentation to improve and enhance the public transportation can be considered as one of the most crucial actions of government in major communities. The two main objectives of this paper are the following; the first one is to present a comprehensive Rural Intelligent Public Transportation System (RIPTS); this system can offer services to different users whether drivers, passengers, travel agencies, and other relevant transportation institutions as well as control and provide management of rural transportation through applying the integrated wireless communicative technologies such as GPRS, RFID, NFC, WI-FI, and also cloud and grid computing technologies, GIS and GPS; which results in less pollution, fuel consumption, cost and time, and on the other side, increased safety and convenience.
The other objective is to analyze how the proposed design affects the performance of Rural Public Transportation Electronic Commerce Systems (RPTECSs). A RPTECS is considered essentially a subsystem in RIPTS. It provides facility of buying and selling rural transportation services (such as air ticket, train ticket, etc.) through the Internet (or other alternative communication networks). For this purpose, computer modeling and simulation of RPTECS's processes using Petrinets and WoPeD (“WoPeD,” 2013) tool are addressed. Computer simulation is the design of an actual physical or a theoretical system, running the model on a computer and analyzing the output of the model. The purpose of stimulation is the study and analysis of the reference system. The foundation of simulation is a model. Each kind of presentation or expression of a system is called a model. A model describes the behavior of a system and simplification, uniformity and unity can be regarded as its properties. One method of modeling is using Petrinets. Petrinets was invented in 1962 by Carl Adam Petri (Aalst & Hee, 2002, p. 36). He was mostly focused on information systems, since then, many groups in different countries were formed to enhance the researches on application of Petrinets. The main application of Petrinets is in transportation, regarding the utilization of Petrinets to resolve the traffic problems such as: congestion, subways, buses and trains scheduling, traffic lights scheduling, etc. (Spiteri Staines, 2012; Retchkiman, 2008; Darbari, Singh, Asthana, & Prakash, 2010; Huang & Chung, 2008; Qu, Li, Liu, Chen, & Dai, 2010; Filipova, Stojadinova, & Hadjiatanasova, 2002). Furthermore, based on the studies, only Zhu, Wang, Wang, and Tang (2006) could model interaction among the agents in intelligent transportation systems using Petrinets; and Kabashkin (2007) also has performed the reliability analysis in intelligent transportation systems using modeling evaluation of Petrinets. Therefore, no study has been done regarding the effect of modern technologies on function of information systems related to transportation using Petrinets.