Transit Occupancy Estimation

Divyesh JadavIBM Research - Almaden Research Center

divyesh@us.ibm.comSeptember 19, 2016

Outine

• Image Sensing and Power

• Contemporary Technology

• IoT and Navigation

Self Driving Cars .. Affordable ?

But what about the Power cost ???*: https://www.wired.com/2015/04/cost-of-sensors-autonomous-cars/

UAV Cognition: State of the Art

• Nvidia DRIVE PX2, Based on Tegra X1 SoC

• UAVs realized through computer vision implemented by neural networks, with more compute power being necessary to get better performance with greater accuracy.

• Consumes 250W and will require liquid cooling

Neuro Synaptic Computing

IBM TrueNorth

TrueNorth Applications

What’s Available Now?• 2008* study (86 agencies) showed:

• Majority of transit agencies used manual plus automated methods for counting ridership

• Median capital cost: $6,638. Median annual maintenance cost: $600. Complexity an issue.

• Infra red beams popular. Video technology and location-stamped farebox data also common

• Most mass transit vehicles have surveillance cameras for passenger safety.

• Fatal passenger shooting on BART train in January 2016 revealed that 77 percent of cameras on BART trains are decoys

• Rectification will take 2 years & cost > $1.5 Million

*: Passenger Counting Systems: A Synthesis of Transit Practice. Daniel Boyle, Tranportation Research Board of the National Academies (2008)

One Approach

IoT and Navigation

• IoT Economy has spawned a variety of interesting devices

• We are specifically interested in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) IoT beacons.

• BeaSmart Project

• Proof of concept beacon-based toolkit being deployed and tested at IBM

• Goals

1. Understand the potential for BLE beacons within industrial buildings

2. Understand the challenges involved in using BLE beacons.

3. Ultimately, BeaSmart intends to provide a contextualized experience for employees and visitors as they navigate through closed spaces

What are BLE Beacons

• Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Beacons1

• Low touch – 1 to 5 years battery life

• Low cost – few 10s of $ in volume

• Kontakt.io Smart Beacon2

• Broadcaster Chip

• Replaceable 1,000mAh Lithium Coin Battery

• Use Cases

• SFO allows people to know what’s around them at all times3

• Occupancy Detection4

• Major League Baseball Ballpark51. J. Lindh, Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons, Texas Instruments, January 2015

2. “Kontakt.io Smart Beacon”, [Online]. Available: https://store.kontakt.io/our-products/1-ibeacon-

smart-beacon.html

3. “SFO Interanational Airports”, [Online]. Available: http://indoo.rs/sfo

4. See Section III of paper

5. “MLB Ballpark”, [Online]. Available: http://mlb.mlb.com/mobile/ballpark/index.jsp

Beacons for Transit Assistance

• RouteMe21 goals:

• Navigation assistance to special needs passengers AND their caregivers

• Am I on the right buse?

• Has the passenger deviated from the planned trip? If so, is corrective action necessary?

• Technology

• Beacons + WiFi + GPS + 511.org

• iOS device support initially

1. http://news.ucsc.edu/2016/09/public-transit-service.html

• Partners

• Santa Clara VTA

• Vista Center for Blind and Visually Impaired

• Caltrain

Early Work• Site setup and deployment

• Acquire Site map

• Map WiFi locations (avoid interference)

• Assign Beacon Maj/Min IDs using Admin App

• Place Beacons

• Testbed Calibration

• Interactive way for user to know beacon locations

• Collect training data by walking the area

• Build a model of expected signal strengths of known beacons

• Use nearest neighbor algorithm to match new readings with nearest training data

• Use Cases

• Where is my next bus?

• How do I transfer from bus to train?

Thank You!

divyesh@us.ibm.com