The ubiquitous computing is used to describe Information and Technology Systems (ICT) that enable information and task to be made available everywhere and to support intuitive human usage, appearing invisible to the user. There are five properties of ubiquitous system: implicit human computer interaction, autonomous, context awareness, intelligent and distributed. The architectural design of ubiquitous system is known as smart DEI model. It consists of smart devices, smart environment and smart interactions. Smart devices are multipurpose devices which operate as a single portal and can access multiple applications which are located on servers or other devices. Smart environment is a set of networked devices which are connected to the physical world. Smart interaction are coordinated, semantics and convention based interactions driven by dynamic organizations [9]. In this research, we used ubiquitous computing in designing the various layer of ITS architecture.
Smart Design Model
There are three architectural design patterns of the ubiqui- tous system which are: smart devices, smart environment and smart interaction. This system is also divided in these three sub systems. Following is the flow chart and brief explanation of the smart DEI model:
This system has both kinds of interaction one to one (while transmitting messages to the vehicles) and many to many as well (while answering the user query). In one to one reaction, there is smart devices and the smart environment. Moreover, in many to many interaction, there is a smart interaction.
In an ordinary traffic system, there are four basic nodes of the infrastructure which are: vehicle, pickup points, traffic control center and communication network. This system also has these components, the only difference is the type, specification and the functions of these components. Fig-2 is the basic structure of smart devices of the proposed ubiquitous computing intelligent transport System.
In this ITS there are only five nodes to reduce the work and maintenance load.
1) Node 1: First node is tablet with either 3G or 4G technology which could be mounted on the vehicle (bus or train). So that the wireless communication from one node to another would be extremely fast and reliable. There are various different models of tablets (with 3G or 4G support) in the market which could be used for this purpose. For this ITS, Sony tablet S 3G and Samsung Galaxy 4G tablet were considered. In practical any one could be mounted in the vehicle (bus / train).
2) Node 2: In this node the smart phone could be mounted on the stations to interact with the user to inform them about real time transport information. As for the customers, they could have any smart phone or 3G phone. This node could be portable. Some of the requirements of this system could be fulfilled by either 2.5G or 3G mobile handset. But to meet other requirements the user must have the smart phones.
3) Node 3: The Traffic Control Room could be one to many (1 M) or many to many (M M) smart interaction. In this node there would be a monitoring system and a database of Real Time travel data. In this node the measured traffic data would be updating after every regular interval. Then this data could be either passed on to the node 1 / node 2 or it could be used to calculate new routes / schedule and travel times etc. Then there was a passive monitoring system in this control center which could alarm if something goes wrong either in the infrastructure or in the physical environment e.g. road or train tracks.
4) Node 4: The node 4 was sensors which could be responsible for the measuring and communicating the real time travel data within the ITS structure. There could be sensors like RTMS to detect the speed, arrival time and Location of the incoming vehicle on the bus stop etc. Then again to make life easy for user and the transport control system, there could be RFID card reader and the Android Operating mobile phone could be fixed over the bus / train stop. The basic need of these two was to provide the real time traffic data to the user and drivers as well.
5) Node 5: The connectivity of all the other nodes with each other could be provided by the built in feature of the 3G in the tablet. This is extremely fast and reliable wireless mode of communication for transmitting the travel data.
6) Node 6: The sixth node could be the LCD which could be mounted on every station to display real time transport information and answer the user query about the system capacity.
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