UTM Bus Transit System - Project Proposal
Group Name : HCI Visionaries
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals Linked : 11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
Problem
In UTM, buses play a crucial role as a means of transportation as a significant portion of the students rely on it to attend classes or commute to other campus facilities. It is undeniable that the bus system in UTM is significant and efficient as they could carry a whole lot of people to a certain place compared to vehicles like cars or motorcycles.
However there are quite a few problems which buses have, one of the main problems we want to solve is the reliability and punctuality of the bus arrival time. These uncertainties can lead to inconvenience for students who rely on buses for their transportation needs. Additionally, the mental strain of worrying about whether they have missed the bus adds to the burden. For instance, students may be late for their classes or events if the buses does not arrive on time. Not to mention the difficulty in estimating the arrival time of the bus from the time given in the bus schedule. In order to achieve usability goals which focus on the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction, this problem within UTM bus transit system should be resolved.
The limitation of bus stops in UTM poses an additional challenge for students since students are unable to reach their destination directly. As a result, students will need to make an extra distance by foot if the bus stop is far from their actual destination. For example, students from Faculty of Electrical Engineering who lives at KTC are only able to get down at P19a bus stop. However, the issue is most of their classes are at P06, P02 blocks which are far from the bus stop mentioned. This problem should be addressed to achieve user experience goals and enhance the overall experience of students using the bus service.
To achieve Usability Goals :
1. Unpredictable arrival time and sudden route changes.
It is a normal occurrence for the bus to be not on time due to unforeseen circumstances such as traffic congestion or sudden mechanical issues, with the main problem usually being the bus changing the normal route halfway due to overcapacity of students in the bus. This has caused a lot of UTM students to either be late for their lecture classes or left them frustratingly waiting for the bus unknowingly that the bus they are waiting for has already changed their usual bus route halfway. As a result, some UTM students who do not have their own transportation would be forced to walk to their respective faculty or resort to other transportation services such as Kumpool which costs money.
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| Figure 1 : Lack of A and C buses causing numerous students from K9 College being late for their classes at their respective faculties |
2. Insufficient Detail of Bus Routes.
The current UTMSmart app does have a function where UTM students can check the route details of each bus. However, it will be hard for us to know exactly how the bus will pass through each and every location without a visual map, especially for those who are new and not familiarized with the whole UTM area yet. So UTM students are forced to open another app such as Google Maps to check where that specific location is to know the bus route visually.
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| Figure 2 : Each bus's route is briefly described and lacks a graphic map. |
3. Inconvenience in identifying multiple bus routes.
There are situations where UTM students would like to reach a certain destination significantly further from their area but the bus will not directly go to that destination. Hence UTM students would have to navigate multiple bus routes, forcing them to remember where they have to drop off from the bus and sit onto another bus to reach that location, which the current system doesn’t provide. Hence, it’s a hassle to travel to a destination outside of their area.
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| Figure 3 & 4 : UTM bus route video from Youtube that teach students the bus route to get to K9/K10 from KTR/KTF/etc. at Centre Point(CP) |
“UTM Bus Transit System” - A comprehensive bus campus solution by using mobile application
This solution is introduced to enhance the current UTM Bus system functionality, and aims to make more UTM students use the free UTM bus transportation system more easily and comfortably.
How this proposed solution solves the current system’s problem:
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| Figure 5 : Live location tracking for buses in Moovit |
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| Figure 6 : Go KL City Bus Route map as example that can use as reference for this system |
3. Inconvenience in identifying multiple bus routes.
There are situations where UTM students would like to reach a certain destination significantly further from their area but the bus will not directly go to that destination. Hence UTM students would have to navigate multiple bus routes, forcing them to remember where they have to drop off from the bus and sit onto another bus to reach that location, which the current system doesn’t provide. Hence, it’s a hassle to travel to a destination outside of their area.
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| Figure 7 : Trip Planning for bus in LTD website that can use as reference for this system |
Target Users
These are the 3 user groups or target audiences that can benefit from our system :
1. UTM On-campus Residents Students
On-campus residents UTM students are our primary target audience since these students are the main passengers of UTM buses most of the time because most of the students do not bring their own car or motorbike, especially first year students.
The students can gain benefits because our proposed solution can help students to easily track and locate the buses within the university area with the real-time tracking function. This enhancement can help students to expect or calculate the arrival time of the bus that they want to ride. Students will be able to plan their time well and won't have to rush to catch their bus in this way.
Since our system can provide every bus's route, including information on bus stops included in the route, new on-campus residents students who are not yet familiar with every UTM bus route can use it to ensure that they take the right bus and won't waste their time checking the bus route using other applications like Google Maps.
2. UTM International Students
One of the user groups who can benefit are international students, who may live on campus or off. Since they are from overseas, they frequently do not own a vehicle at UTM, such as a car or motorbike. Therefore, international students rely heavily on the UTM bus systems to commute around the campus. They can benefit from our proposed solution if they have a little connection of communication with the UTM local community.
They can miss out on some news and especially news about the bus system since the bus’s updates or news have limited places to be informed at. Thus, with our enhanced system, they can get any updates or delays of buses that are in operation during that day on the spot. Therefore, they have easy access to the updates of the bus system since it is in the UTMSmart application and will not waste time waiting for it.
3. UTM Off-Campus Residents Students
UTM Off-campus residents students are not the primary user group since they may already have their own transportation but there are some benefits that this user group can get from our system. One of them is that the students can use our bus recommendations since they are not the primary user of UTM buses so they might not be familiar with all the bus’s routes in the campus. This situation may occur when they do not find any parking around the main building area in the campus such as around the library or chancellery building since that area does not have that much parking for students.
Additionally, they also can use the real-time tracking feature to find the closest bus stop and estimate the arrival time of the next bus in case of an emergency, such as when their car breaks down far from their destination within the campus area.
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