Design Team Members: Mabel Chan & Nathan Doidge
Supervisor: R.A.Fraser, Mechanical Engineering
Background
One of the oldest and most prominent problems with public transit is lack of punctuality. It is widely recognized that public transit is rarely on time and is very difficult to accurately predict. Everything from unpredictable traffic accidents to bad weather conditions such as snowstorms and heavy rainfall can have an effect on the actual arrival time of transit vehicles. Although there are many advances in vehicle tracking technology, their high cost and complexity have traditionally prohibited their use in transit organizations across Ontario.
After consulting some local public transit operations, we have concluded that there exists a very lucrative market for sophisticated-but-economical vehicle tracking technology. The current market price for a complete tracking system installed for a medium-sized operation is around $600,000. This figure includes a cost of $1000 per vehicle being tracked. Less expensive systems are available but these systems tend to be less accurate and not very reliable. From our research, we have concluded that a low-cost, technically advanced vehicle tracking solution does not currently exist.
Project description
Currently available vehicle tracking systems do not adequately fulfil the needs of local transit organizations in a convenient and cost-effective manner. Our objective with this project is to design a product that meets these needs and is capable of competing with currently available systems. In order to do this we must first identify the sub-systems involved in a vehicle tracking system and develop a strategy for producing each one. We will test the system under realistic operating conditions and evaluate its performance based on both our expectations, and the results our competition is claiming.
Design methodology
After justifying that our project is both technically feasible and economically viable, our work began by producing a design specification. Using data obtained from our consultation with local transit organizations and competitor analysis, we developed criteria and constraints that can be used to guide the project. After the entire project was broken into logical sub-systems, initial work began with designing the first sub-system, the locator. A prototype was constructed and tests were conducted to evaluate the accuracy, reliability and cost of our design. Similar work will be carried out with the remaining sub-systems. Once our product is completed, we will evaluate it against its potential competition and make modifications to the original design if necessary.