A Non-GPS based Location Tracking of Public Buses using Bluetooth Proximity Beacons

Tracking of public bus location requires a GPS device to be installed, and many bus operators in developing countries do not have such a solution in place to provide an accurate estimation of bus arrival time (ETA). Without ETA information, it is very difficult for the general public to plan their journey effectively. This paper proposes an innovative IoT solution to track the location of buses without requiring the deployment of a GPS device. It uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) proximity beacon to track the journey of a bus by deploying an Estimote location beacon on the bus. BLE detection devices (Raspberry Pi 3) are installed at selected bus stops along the bus route to detect the arrival of buses. Once detected, the location of the bus is submitted to a cloud server to compute the bus ETAs. A field trial is currently being conducted in Johor, Malaysia in collaboration with a local bus operator on one single bus route. Our test results showed that the detection of BLE beacons is very accurate and it is feasible to track the location of buses without using a GPS device in a cost effective way. A mobile app - myBusz has been developed as well to allow for passengers to check the bus ETA in real-time.