e-BusGuide: An IT-based Approach to Improve the Profitability of Bus Transportation Systems in India

One of the problems faced by Bus Transport Systems in India is low occupancy rate. Efforts are being made by Bus Transport Corporations to improve bus occupancy by requesting the public to use buses over other modes of transport. One of the reasons for low occupancy is that a passenger normally does not know the bus scheduling information, and bus-arrival timing information to bus-stops. Trends in wireless technology have resulted in most of the passengers owning mobile phones. We believe that by providing reliable bus-route and real-time bus arrival information to passengers' mobile phones, it is possible to improve the bus occupancy. In this paper we propose an architecture of IT-based Bus Information System (called “eBusGuide”) which aims to improve the bus-occupancy by providing bus-route and arrival information to passengers in a timely manner. The proposed system can be built using available Internet/Web technology and messaging service provided by mobile phones. The profitability computation by considering the case of local bus transport system in Hyderabad (India) shows that it is possible to double the profitability, even eBusGuide attracts one percent more passengers. In addition, with eBusGuide, it is possible to improve the quality of bus-service, work culture, passenger satisfaction, environment and profitability of tourism department.