Sanket: Live Public Transport Tracking Using Mobile Application
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Abstract
This paper presents the end-to-end design, implementation, and empirical evaluation of a Live Public Transport Tracking System (LPTTS) using a cross-platform mobile application. The system integrates GPS-enabled IoT devices installed on city buses, a Node.js cloud backend with WebSocket-based real-time communication, a React Native passenger mobile application, a Flutter-based driver application, and a React.js administrative web dashboard. Passengers can view live bus positions on an interactive Mapbox map, receive accurate Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) at each stop, and subscribe to push notifications for service disruptions. A weighted hybrid ETA algorithm combining distance- based estimation, historical travel patterns, and real-time speed data achieves a mean absolute error of 63 seconds across three pilot routes — outperforming linear and historical-only baselines by 42.7% and 22.5% respectively. The system achieves end-to-end location update latency of
1.8 seconds (p95), 99.4% uptime over 30 operational days, and a passenger user satisfaction score of 4.6/5.0 in user acceptance testing. A full cost-benefit analysis demonstrates payback within 14 months for a 50-bus fleet. The complete open-source architecture is presented with implementation details, code samples, performance tables, system screenshots, and comparative analysis against state-of-the-art transit tracking solutions.
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References
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