Advanced Waterway Transport System Based on Internet of Things (IoT): A Novel Approach

Nowadays the inland waterway transport sector has grown significantly in recent years, offering a large possible contribution to environmentally friendly and cost-effective transportation to reduce congestion on the roads. Accidents in developing nations’ waterways occur on a daily basis all throughout the year. For example, in Bangladesh, a total of 320 incidents resulted in the deaths of 496 people between 2014 and 2020, while 5425 accidents resulted in 6220 injuries. Hence, the need to develop a much more safe, secure, and efficient system is highly needed. In this paper, we propose a architecture to ensure safety in inland waterways using IoT to unlock new way for developing waterway transportation using a different type of sensors and protocols to collect data. Besides, our architecture comprises weight calculation using load line image processing system, automated speed and distance control system over vessels using ACC (Adaptive Cruise Control), priority data encoding system, and continuous monitoring having post accident safety measurement. Finally, we evaluate our model efficacy using Arduino Uno microprocessor, Ultrasonic Sonar Sensor HC- SR04, DHT11–Temperature Sensor, Humidity Sensor, LM393 Speed Sensor, and Smoke Sensor through a real implementation. In addition, we use ESP8266 Wi-Fi MCU and LoRa as the Data communication module and present the collected data through our implementation on ThingSpeak Cloud.