There’s new research from University of Cagliari, Italy on Beep4Me: Automatic Ticket Validation to Support Fare Clearing and Service Planning.
Integrated transport with single ticketing across bus, tram and train requires revenue sharing between service providers which, in turn, needs accurate usage data. Relying solely on user-provided data suffers from incomplete data because not all users always validate their ticket when checking out or when switching lines.
The researchers have created a system, Beep4Me, that collects usage data and interfaces with an existing mobile ticketing platform.
A smartphone app identifies the vehicle (bus, tram, or train) and automatically validates the ticket. It does this using Bluetooth LE beacons and location and orientation phone sensors to identify the patterns to clearly define modes of transport. Beacons are installed on buses:
The test data demonstrated almost perfect accuracy of event detection such as validation, transfer, choosing a ticket, purchasing a ticket and check-out.