MobiBus: A Mobile Application to Keep Track of Buses in Small Cities

Major cities have been investing in vast financial resources to improve their information systems regarding public transport, especially regarding bus schedules and time of arrival. Medium-sized cities, however, do not have the financial resources to buy or develop applications that can provide accurate information to the users of the public transportation system. In this sense, this article presents a proposal based on the concepts of crowdsourcing, mobile computing, and social networks, to offer a viable solution to the problem, both technically and economically speaking. The developed application allows people to exchange information about the public transportation service, obtain the location of the bus and the estimated time of arrival of a bus at a certain location. As a contribution, it is expected to occur democratization of information about the public transport system, even in cities with little financial resources to invest in this area. An experiment with real users of the Alagoinhas public transport system suggests that the MobiBus App can alleviate the inconveniences caused by a long waiting time at the bus stops, making users feel more secure.