Development of an Advanced Public Transportation System for captive commuters on urban arterials in Ilorin, Nigeria

The study developed an Advanced Public Transportation System (APTS) software package that serves as an intelligent movement system for captive commuters. Although a typical APTS has an Automated Trip Scheduling System (ATSS), a Digital Geographic Database (DGD), and an Automated Vehicle Location Equipment (AVLE) as subsystems, the fact that vehicles in the study area are not equipped with AVLE made the authors to design for an APTS that has only the ATSS and DGD components. The ATSS subsystem has the specific objectives of reducing commuters waiting time at bus terminals, automating trip booking thus assuring a passenger of the availability of a bus and also keeps an inventory of passengers and trips made by commuters and the vehicles. The DGD allows maps of the service area to be displayed to the scheduler/operator and the commuters/ clients on computer screen. The Ilorin metropolis a typical urban center in Nigeria, a developing economy, is used as the study area. Nigeria stands to benefit from ITS potentials if the developed package is put to use by urban transit operators.