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Five hundred passengers in Dubuque, Iowa used radio frequency identification tags to track their location in the city to improve the efficiency of the city’s public transportation system. Volunteers bring tags to the bus and read data such as the location and time of passengers getting on and off the bus. These data help passengers to better plan traffic routes. For managers of the public transportation system, analyzing the data can effectively improve the service level of the public transportation system.

The RFID technical support in this project was provided by Wave Reaction (RFID Radio Frequency Newsletter: Headquartered in Illinois), and the collected data was analyzed by IBM Research. This project is one of the pilot research projects for smart tourism cities and is also part of the implementation of “Sustainable Dubuque”, which aims to improve the city’s infrastructure such as water, electricity, health care and so on. Another smart project is to track the movement of passengers through GPS data collected by mobile phones. Both projects were completed with the assistance of urban volunteers. Individual names were not involved in the execution of the project, and each volunteer had an anonymous number.

David Lyons, director of the project, said: The "Sustainable Dubuque" project started in 2006, when the councillors and mayor of Dubuque strongly advocated sustainable development and made it a top priority. In 2009, Dubuque began planning a pilot project to explore more information about promoting the sustainable development of the city. For urban transportation, I hope to obtain information that can help increase the passenger capacity of buses and the efficiency of bus dispatch (for example, determine the size of the bus most suitable for the tourist route). In order to achieve this goal, the city began to cooperate with IBM research company to analyze the data, and decided to use RFID technology to track the number of passengers in existing bus routes. Approximately 18 buses are included in the pilot, and there are also a few spare vehicles to prevent overloading.

According to Charles Daoud, sales director of Wave Reaction, these buses are equipped with RFID readers designed by Wave Reaction and rely on on-board inverters installed on the ceiling. The antenna in the generator can send a 433 MHz signal to the tag to assist in the transmission of information between the tag and the reader.

Provide each volunteer with a 433 MHz RFID, an active tag that conforms to the ISO 18000-7 standard. The size of the label is about 1 inch * 2 inches, and the thickness is one-quarter inch, which fits in the user's pocket or wallet. In order to motivate volunteers, volunteers with tags can get free rides.

Each participant received the latest results of this research via e-mail. However, the information in the research process is completely anonymous and does not involve any personal information such as passenger addresses and names associated with the tags.

The tag emits a signal every five minutes. When the bus arrives at the station, passengers carry the tag into the car, and the tag sends out a signal again under the guidance of the signal inside the car. When you hear the buzzer, it indicates that the reader has read the code of the tag. At the same time, the GPS unit in the car locates the location of the bus. The tag data and GPS data are transmitted to Wave Reaction's server through the cellular network, and the two are associated. The tag sends its ID to the reader every five minutes, indicating that the passenger is still in the car.

When passengers get off the car, they pass through the inverter in the door, and the tag sends a signal again to show the location of the passenger. Once the passenger gets off the bus, the reader will no longer receive a signal, and the background software will get the location of the passenger off the bus based on the GPS and tag data.

The IBM Research Company analyzes the read data and forwards the information to the urban traffic management department every week for further evaluation and adjustment of bus routes based on the analysis results. When the passenger flow is high, increase the number of buses, when the passenger flow is low, choose a smaller bus, and make reasonable arrangements according to different situations.

Passengers only started using the tags in mid-August this year; the city administration has not yet begun to check the results. Lyons said that in the first few weeks of the pilot, the system was mainly used to test the reading of tags in the system, and several "dead spots" were found, where there was no reliable cellular connection. In this case, the information service at these locations can only be suspended.

Lyons hopes that the collected data can bring more convenience to Dubuque passengers and help traffic managers make effective decisions: ensure that buses of the appropriate size are fully utilized at different times, and as much as possible to meet the needs of passengers and be as effective as possible. Save fuel and realize the sustainable development of the city with high efficiency and environmental protection.

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