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Internet of Things Technologies for Urban Public Transport Systems: A Case

Application in Chengdu, China

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Fangfang Zheng1,2; She Chen3; Jin Zhang2; and Fajun Qiu4

1

National United Engineering Laboratory of Integrated and Intelligent

Transportation, Chengdu 610031, China.
2
School of Transportation and Logistics, Southwest Jiaotong University, Sichuan
610031, China. E-mail: fzheng@home.swjtu.edu.cn
3
Chengdu Association of Social Sciences, Chengdu Academy of Social Sciences,
Chengdu 610023, China. E-mail: chshe168@vip.sina.com
4
Chengdu Public Transport Group Co. Ltd. E-mail: 461597527@qq.com
Abstract: Public transport is widely acknowledged as a high capacity transport mode
which helps mitigate traffic congestion in urban road networks, reduce fuel
consumption and improve air quality. In this paper, a review of the application of
internet of things technologies, such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID),
GPS/GIS and GPRS/3G/4G, in public transport system is presented. Thereafter, a
newly developed intelligent public transport system with application of Internet of
things technologies in Chengdu city is analyzed. The effectiveness of the system is
quantitatively analyzed. Results show that application of Internet of things
technologies in Chengdu public transport system highly improves operational
efficiency and level of service, and reduces total costs of operation and management.
Keywords: Public transport; Internet of things; RFID; GPS/GIS; Level of service.
1 Introduction
In big cities, urban roads become more and more congested, especially at rush
hours. In order to mitigate traffic congestions, different traffic management measures
have been or are being applied, such as congestion pricing, ITS measures, limit
issuance of new car license plates, traffic restrictions based on the last digit of license
plate numbers, etc. However, when car traffic demand highly exceeds road supply,
the improvement of traffic conditions by applying some traditional traffic
management measures appears marginal. In the past decades, more attention has
been paid to develop public transport around the world. In China, public transport
operators and authorities are trying to increase the public transport mode share by
performing fare reform, improving public transport operational efficiency and level
of service. In recent years, with the application of Internet of Things technologies in
ITS, e.g., RFID technology, sensing technologies, GPS/GIS, GPRS/3G/4G, etc., more
advanced public transport systems are being developed.
RFID is non-contact automatic identification technology that uses radio waves to
identify and track groups or individual objects at distance. The application of RFID

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technology in public transport systems started in recent years. In the US and some
European countries, the RFID enabled smart card is widely used in the transport field
to perform revenue collection. It is perceived as a secure method of user validation
and fare payment(Pelletier et al., 2011). Apart from fare collection, the data collected
by RFID smart cards can be used for long-term network planning, travel behavior
analysis, demand forecasting, schedule adjustment, and longitudinal and individual
trip patterns(Pelletier et al., 2011). RFID technology can be applied for Automatic
Vehicle Location (AVL) as well. In Beijing, RFID technology was applied for bus
signal priority since 2008(Jiang et al., 2011). When a bus equipped with a RFID tag
approaches the intersection, a roadside RFID reader captures the bus information and
sends it to the traffic signaling system to control the traffic light(Lee et al., 2009). A
simulation study conducted in (Wang et al., 2011) shows that the RFID enabled bus
priority system has the potential to improve public bus service level by reducing
congestion of bus traffic flow.
GPS/GIS and GSM/GPRS/3G technologies have been extensively applied in
road transport systems for vehicle monitoring purpose. In the public transport
context, data collected by GPS equipped buses can be used for bus fleet tracking and
scheduling. In (Medagama et al., 2008) , a GPS/GIS/GPRS and web based system
framework for large fleet ( including bus fleet) tracking is proposed. In (Liao, 2011),
a data driven tool was developed to fuse GPS data and fare collection data. Sun et al.
(Sun et al., 2007) Proposed a method to predict bus arrival time at individual bus
stops based on the bus location and speed data collected by GPS enabled buses.
Besides, The GPS equipped AVL is commonly implemented along with signal
priority systems for buses (Hounsell et al., 2005; Liao et al., 2006).
In this paper, Internet of Things technologies applied in public transport systems
are reviewed in the next section. Then, intelligent public transport system of
Chengdu city, which is composed of four subsystems with application of Internet of
things technologies, is presented in section 3. In section 4, the effectiveness of the
system is discussed. The last section concludes the paper.
2 Intelligent public transport system in Chengdu
2.1 Background
Chengdu city is located in the southwest of China with a population of more
than fourteen million. By the end of 2013, the car ownership in Chengdu is about
three million, which ranks three among all cities in China. Traffic demand increases
year by year, which leads to severe congestion, especially during rush hours. In the
past five years, developing an intelligent public transport system is on the agenda of
Chengdu municipality. The system started in 2008, and it is now in full operation.
This system is composed of four parts: smart card system, bus monitoring system,
bus scheduling system and bus information system. In the following, detailed
information about these subsystems will be presented.

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2.2 Smart card system

The smart card system (IC card system), has been implemented in Chengdu
public transport system since 2004. Up to 2014, more than 7000 buses are equipped
with contactless smart card readers that are linked to a GPS device. The preliminary
purpose of this system is to realize no cash fare collection. The value stored on a
smart card is mainly in the form of eCash and number of rides. Passengers who are
onboard in the same bus or transfer less than three times within two hours pay a fixed
amount of fare, independent of time of the day and trip distance. Therefore, unlike
some systems, where passengers need to tap-on when get in the bus and tap-out when
get out of the bus, this system requires passengers to tap-on only when get onboard
the bus and no tap-out is required. On average, 75% of passengers use a smart card
when traveling with public transport. This percentage goes up to 95% during peak
hours. Apart from the role of effective revenue collection, ridership, boarding
location and time can be collected as well. Figure 1 (a) illustrates ridership of bus
line 47 at different periods of a weekday. Two peaks which are a morning peak
between 7:30 and 9:30 and an afternoon peak between 17:00 and 19:00 can be
clearly observed. Figure 1 (b) shows ridership of a weekend day, where passenger
volumes are more evenly distributed along the day and no peaks can be observed.

(a)

weekday ( 2nd, March 2011)

(b) weekend (5th, March 2011)

Figure 1. Ridership of bus line 47 (aggregated in 20min)

The passenger flow data collected by a smart card system can be used to
optimize bus line networks, scheduling plans and to improve bus operational
efficiency. However, the smart card system now in use in Chengdu public transport
company can only collect boarding information of passengers and no alighting
information is available. Recently, a new card called double-chip (CPU chip and
RFID chip) card has been developed. With this double-chip smart card system,
passengers only need to tap on when they get onboard the bus, and the boarding
information and fare can be collected. No tap out is needed since the alighting
information is collected automatically by a RFID reader installed at the back door of
the bus. The detailed ridership information collected can be used for long-term bus
line network planning and scheduling adjustment. FIGURE 2 shows the structure of

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a RFID equipped smart card system and the data flow among components of the
system.

Figure 2. Simple representation of the double- chip smart card system

structure and data flow
2.3 Bus monitoring system
In Chengdu, the development of the bus monitoring system started since 2009.
Some integrated sensing technologies such as RFID, GPS, GIS, 3G and video have been
applied to monitor bus operations. The status of a bus running in the road network
can be tracked by applying GPS/GIS/GPRS technologies. In Chengdu, more than
7000 buses are equipped with GPS receivers. The information of bus locations and
speeds are sent to the bus monitoring center every 15s through GPRS network. Every
bus has a mobile data terminal that allows drivers to send and receive messages and
trigger alarms. If a bus driver does not take the right bus line or drives over the speed
limit, a warning message will be sent to the driver by the monitoring center.
2.4 Bus scheduling system
A GPS based communication technology, together with GIS and GPRS/CDMA
technologies are used to improve real-time tracking and scheduling of buses. On one
hand, bus traveling distance collected by GPS is directly linked to the bonus of each
bus driver, which helps improve working efficiency of bus drivers. On the other
hand, the collected GPS data and passenger data collected by the IC card system are
used for estimating ridership of each bus line. According to the estimated ridership,
four categories of bus lines are identified as shown in Table 1.

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Table 1. Categories of bus lines

Types of bus lines

Ridership (person
trips/month)

1200,000

between 800,000
and 1200,000

between 300,000
and 800,000

300,000

2.5 Bus information system

This system helps travelers make better trip plan with public transport. Before
trips, users can get access to the bus information website from computers or
web-enabled wireless devices. The system is also combined with GPS based AVL
system to provide information of bus arriving at or departing from a bus stop to
travelers. Besides, more than 1200 Variable message signs have been installed at bus
stops within the third ring road of Chengdu city. The bus arrival time information is
displayed in the variable message sign. Recently, Chengdu public transport company
has developed an app for smartphones. The app gives real-time bus arrival
information for the users selected bus stops or bus routes. Another new function of
this app, which is the customized service of buses, has been provided to users.
3 Discussion
TABLE 2 compares the quantitative indexes of bus operation, safety and service
before (in 2008) and after (in 2013) implementation of the intelligent public transport
system. It is clear that the operational efficiency has been improved substantially in
2013 compared with that in 2008. The number of accidents and the number of bus
drivers who drive over speed limit have decreased greatly in 2013 compared with
those in 2008. Besides, the level of service has been improved as well after
implementation of the system. TABLE 3 indicates operational cost savings after
implementation of the system.
Table 2. Comparison of indexes between 2008 and 2013
Operation Indexes

2008

Fare collected per thousand buses per kilometer (RMB)

3772

Percentage of buses in operation during peak hours (%)

62%

93%

Safety Indexes

2008

2013

Number of over-speed limit (per month)

2013
4260

2136

695

Number of accidents (per month)

277

59

Service Indexes

2008

2013

Number of complaints (per 600,000 person trips)

207

Average Waiting time during peak hours (min)

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Table 3. Cost savings after implementation of the system

Type of cost

Labor
cost

Bus purchase
cost

Reduced amount of
cost (10,000 RMB)

14,000

70,000

Invalid bus travel distance

(converted to cost)
8,400

In total
92,400

5 Conclusions
In big cities with large population, an efficient way to reduce traffic congestion
and enhance efficiency of transportation systems is to develop public transport
system as a priority. In this paper, application of Internet of Things technologies in
Chengdu public transport system is presented. The comparison results between
before and after development of the system show that the operational efficiency and
the level of service are improved, and operational costs are reduced substantially. The
public transport mode share increased by 7.5% since 2010 when the system started to
perform its function.
Acknowledgement
This research is supported by the postdoc research project of Chengdu Public
Transport Group CO., LTD. and the Key Laboratory of Road and Traffic Engineering
of the Ministry of Education, Tongji University under contract K20404.
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