Traffic congestion is one of the most concerned problems in most large cities in Thailand. In addition, the regular mode of public transportation such as bus and train does not cover the travelling route for passengers. This realization has led the passengers to the change of their consumption to find alternative public transportation modes and other options to ensure on-time arrival to the destination.
Motorcycle taxi is the one among these options and has become more popular, especially during the rush hours. However, there exist complaints regarding passenger safety issue. Since Thammasat University at Rangsit Campus contains a large number of population living in all covered area, there is a need to have motorcycle taxi to provide services for passengers both inside and outside campus.
To prevent the consequence of the accident due to the bad driving behavior, Dr. Nopbhorn Leeprechanon, the project leader and an assistant professor from the department of electrical and computer engineering, faculty of engineering, Thammasat university, therefore introduced an automated metering and application platform, having the function for behavior monitoring and passenger service fare price which is the combination of the automated vehicle tracking system infrastructure and fare calculator for motorcycle taxi.
The proposed system is designed based on the Global Positioning System (GPS), Internet of Things (IOTs) and Cloud principle, which could track and capture the logging data of motorcycle taxi driver behaviors and could also record vehicle details. The proposed platform can track the route path, distance, service time and fare price of each motorcycle in real time.
In addition, Nopbhorn and his research team also integrated shock sensor with the automate metering reader installed in the motorcycle taxi and developed an intelligent algorithm in which it can recognize vehicle moving pattern, and has capability to detect and monitor the behavior of the driver. This platform can also be used as a centralized vehicle Management Service Center (CVMS).
Nopbhorn noted that this application platform has been initially tested at Thammasat university to only 8 vehicles with satisfied results, and he hopes that this system can be used for all motorcycle taxi so that the university can gain full control of all the motorcycle taxi drivers to ensure the safety service of this mode of transportation system in campus.