Dec 21, 2015In the Romanian city of Bucharest, a bus company is set to wrap up an eight-month pilot project in which Bluetooth beacons are being used to help visually impaired individuals navigate the bus system. At the same time, thousands of bus passengers in South Tyrol, Italy, are being invited to try a beacon-based service that provides real-time location information regarding buses for all riders, not just those with vision impairments. Both deployments are utilizing Onyx Beacon's Smart Public Transport Solution, which consists of beacon hardware, as well as a cloud-based content-management system (CMS) platform, to communicate with mobile devices via an app that runs on iOS and Android systems.
For the Bucharest Smart Public Transport system, which is being funded by the Vodafone Romania Foundation, Onyx Beacon worked with Tandem Association—a Romanian organization dedicated to furthering the personal autonomy of persons with "mobility disabilities"—and the bus company known as RATB, an acronym that translates in Romanian as Autonomous Administration of Surface Public Transportation.
The Bucharest pilot launched in May 2015 with 40 of Onyx Beacon's Enterprise beacons mounted on as many buses. Since that time, RATB has installed beacons on a total of 500 of the 900 buses that travel through the city. The beacons are mounted on two-sided heavy-duty tape on the vehicle's exterior, above the front passenger door, though they can also be affixed via four screws when the surface allows.
Visually impaired riders (100 are participating in the pilot) download a Tandem Association app known as the Smart Public Transport RO, developed by Onyx Beacon. The app is available on the iTunes and Google Play websites for use on Android or iOS devices. A user at a bus stop inputs the bus that he or she wishes to board, and the app forwards that data to Onyx Beacon's content-management software, which contains a database consisting of the unique ID number for every vehicle's beacon.
When the requested bus comes within 50 to 60 meters (164 to 197 feet) of the passenger's stop, his or her smartphone receives the unique ID number transmitted by the vehicle's beacon. The app forwards that ID to Onyx Beacon's content-management software, which confirms that the bus is indeed the one requested. The phone then chirps to alert the traveler that his or her bus is arriving at the stop.
Once the vehicle comes within 10 to 20 meters (33 to 66 feet), its beacon emits a beeping or buzzing sound to alert the driver that a person with disabilities is at the stop, awaiting that bus. To prevent confusion by drivers when multiple vehicles are in the area, the device can be configured to make one of 16 different sounds. A driver can easily hear the sound, Onyx Beacon reports, particularly when opening the door. The Enterprise beacons are bi-directional, enabling the app to send commands to a beacon via a phone's Bluetooth radio. When a passenger using the app boards the bus, the app detects that the rider's phone has remained within 15 feet of the beacon for an extended period of time, and forwards that information to the content-management system. The CMS, in turn, instructs the app to transmit a command to the beacon to cease emitting the sound.
During the first few months of the pilot, the system was used for buses only on two routes, both of which serve areas containing a high school for visually impaired students. The pilot has since been expanded to the major routes within the city.
This month and next, Tandem and RATB are conducting final tests to further evaluate the performance of the beacons and the app, says Doru Supeala, Onyx Beacon's marketing and communications manager. The association is also accepting requests from users regarding any possible changes to the system's design. Next, Supeala says, Tandem will launch a campaign to encourage the application's use on a large scale, by all visually impaired individuals in Bucharest, not only those who have participated during the development and test phases.
Italian transportation company SASA serves riders in Bolzano, a city in the South Tyrol section of Northern Italy. Its installation (which is not a pilot) was launched in November 2015, and is more complex than the one in Bucharest, due to the deployment of beacons at stops as well as on buses, and the use of the SASAbus application by both visually impaired and general passengers. The solution, known as the SASA project, is intended not just to guide individuals with vision impairments, but all bus riders, by means of an app that informs them about bus lines, routes, hourly schedules and other information based on their location, as determined by beacons within range of their smartphone. The solution also allows the app to request feedback from passengers immediately following each bus ride.
The passengers in Bolzano can download the SASAbus app via the Google Play or iTunes website. The app was developed by Raiffeisen Online (a division of Raiffeisen Bank), which provides integration and installation for Onyx Beacon products in Northern Italy and Austria.
Any passenger, whether visually impaired or not, can use the app to indicate a bus they are awaiting, and then receive an alert when the vehicle arrives. Riders can also utilize the app to access other information, such as the estimated time of arrival for a specific bus, based on beacon data. When a vehicle's beacon comes within range of a bus stop's beacon, the app acquires that information and forwards it to the Onyx Beacon CMS on a cloud-based server. Passengers at stops can then view that data in real time to learn where their bus is located.
When a passenger leaves the bus, his or her phone passes the beacon installed at the station, and the app forwards that data to the cloud-based server, indicating that the phone's user has disembarked. The passenger then receives a survey about the experience on that bus and is invited to complete it.
For the SASA pilot, a total of 1,000 Enterprise beacons were deployed, consisting of a beacon mounted on each of the company's 160 buses and installed at all 840 of bus stops.
"In Bucharest, we expect to have 12,000 visually impaired users," Supeala says, estimating the number of people with vision problems who might use the technology. In South Tirol, SASA provides more than 60,000 passenger trips daily; Onyx Beacon reckons the number of potential users to be between 25,000 and 35,000 per day.
Before the pilots began, Onyx Beacon's engineers and technicians conducted a test simulating the bus experience. Such testing included putting beacons on bicycles and riding them on certain routes within a park until arriving at the designated stations. Other team members carefully monitored all records delivered to the Onyx CMS cloud platform by the app and beacon infrastructure, and used that data to detect any problems and identify solutions.
After the beacons were installed in Bucharest in May of this year, Supeala reports, Onyx Beacon needed to tweak the technology to improve performance. "We have changed the positioning [angle and location of the beacon] and the emitting power of the buzzer of the beacons, in order to provide a more effective signal and communication for the users [drivers]," he states. When it comes to the buzzer, the company found that once the beacons were deployed, the street noise could drown out the buzzer's sound. Therefore, Onyx Beacon drilled a hole in the case to enable it to emit a more powerful audio signal for drivers to hear.
During the coming months, Onyx Beacon plans to launch Smart Public Transit Solution pilots in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and in the Bulgarian cities of Sofia and Burgas.