beacon-related ideas - Githubissues

public-transport / ideas

How to make public transport more comfortable, more accessible, more transparent?

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beacon-related ideas #6

Open juliuste opened 6 years ago

juliuste commented 6 years ago

This issue will collect ideas related to the usage of beacons in public transport.

juliuste commented 6 years ago

Improve delay information using beacons, see #5

juliuste commented 6 years ago

Wouldn't it be cool if every bus stop had a beacon and if you got close to it an app would automatically show you the departures for this stop without you having to do anything?

derhuerst commented 6 years ago

Wouldn't it be cool if every bus stop had a beacon [...]?

I see two advantages over displays showing the departures:

There may be battery-less Bluetooth beacons soon. This drastically reduces the amount of maintenance work per station.
Smartphones allow for custom ways to convey the departures, e.g. special rendering, reading them out. They can also be updated easily.

derhuerst commented 6 years ago

https://www.howtogeek.com/346245/how-802.11mc-will-be-used-to-track-your-location-indoors/

Bertware commented 6 years ago

Put low-power BLE beacons in every train carriage (2 beacons per carriage at low power will ensure you can only detect them in or extremely close to the carriage)
When entering the carriage, application detects the BLE beacons and shows next stop (with delay) of the train you boarded
When opening the application, you instantly see details on your current train, including the option to plan a route "from this train to station X"

It would also allowed for detailed interaction, like crowd-sourcing occupancy data ("how busy is this carriage") or notifications when the train you're on gets delayed.

Travelling from A to B? Your application can provide you with guidance during the entire trip, as the application knows in which train or station you are.

"You are nearing station X, get off and switch to ... " switches trains "Ride this train for 20 minutes until arrival in Y"

derhuerst commented 6 years ago

When entering the carriage, application detects the BLE beacons […].

A team at Deutsche Bahn is currently testing something very similar for checking into a seat in ICE trains.

Travelling from A to B? Your application can provide you with guidance during the entire trip, as the application knows in which train or station you are.

Apps like Citymapper already do this. (That's no reason not to build more/open source apps that do this!)

"You are nearing station X, get off and switch to ... "

Again, Citymapper does this. Some other apps too.

Bertware commented 6 years ago

How does citymapper do this? If they don't have location information (the train you are in), they are basing it on timetables. whereas beacons would allow you to base this off your real position. The application would know if you are on a train or if you missed it, even if you hop on a different train (a train later or earlier). Even if timetables aren't accurate (which they aren't always) or if you change your schedule (which the app can't know) you will keep receiving relevant information.

Even if it's already possible right now, I believe beacons could improve the reliability of such features.

derhuerst commented 6 years ago

When entering the carriage, application […] shows next stop (with delay) of the train you boarded. It would also allowed for […] notifications when the train you're on gets delayed.

Coincidentally, this what we'll build as a (closed-source) app at my new work place, but based on WiFi instead of Bluetooth.

derhuerst commented 6 years ago

How does citymapper do this? If they don't have location information (the train you are in), they are basing it on timetables. whereas beacons would allow you to base this off your real position.

My assumption (from building this myself) is that they use realtime delay info + track polylines to estimate where trains currently are.

The application would know if you are on a train or if you missed it, even if you hop on a different train (a train later or earlier). Even if timetables aren't accurate (which they aren't always) or if you change your schedule (which the app can't know) you will keep receiving relevant information.

Even if it's already possible right now, I believe beacons could improve the reliability of such features.

Definitely! But it will take a while until all vehicles have beacons, so until then we will have to resort to methods described before.

derhuerst commented 6 years ago

@Bertware Just to clarify my last points: I didn't intend to say that building beacon-based apps isn't a valuable idea or that you/we shouldn't build it. I just wanted to mention that some (closed-source) apps already do parts of it, so we should have a look how they do it.