An IoT based scholar bus monitoring system

Juan Zambada, Ricardo Quintero, Ramon Isijara, Ricardo Galeana, Luis Santillan
Computer Science Department
Technological Institute of Culiacan. Sinaloa, Mexico
{jzambada, rquintero, risijara, rgaleana, carlos santillan}@itculiacan.edu.mx

Abstract—School transport is used by millions of children
worldwide. However, not a substantial effort is done in order
to improve the existing school transport systems. This paper
presents the development of an IoT based scholar bus monitoring
system. The development of new telematics technologies has
enabled the development of various Intelligent Transport Systems.
However, these are not presented as ITS services to end users.
This paper presents the development of an IoT based scholar bus
monitoring system that through localization and speed sensors
will allow many stakeholders such as parents, the goverment, the
school and many other authorities to keep realtime track of the
scholar bus behavior, resulting in a better controlled scholar bus.
Keywords—School Transport, Intelligent Transport Systems
(ITS), Internet of Things (IoT), propagation node, sensor, mon-
itoring, MQTT, EPC, EPCGlobal, RFID, Mosquitto Broker
I. I NTRODUCTION
School transport is used by millions of children in the
European Union (EU) [1] and so in many cities around the
world. Having said this, although children are some of the
most vulnerable users, little research has been conducted with
the goal of achieving a safer school transport system for them
[2]. To achieve a safer school transport, one has to consider
it from the moment that children leave home, until they reach
the door of his school as most of the deaths and injuries they
suffer are presented outside the school transport (74%) [3].
In the United States from 2003 to 2012, 119 pedestrians
school age (under 19 years) have died in accidents involving
school buses; 65% were beaten by school transportation, 5%
operating as school transport vehicles and 30% by other
vehicles involved in accidents [4]. The result on a pilot study
[5] was that children feel safer and experience less stress level,
when the school transport reduces the speed when approaching
schools and bus stops. In order to have a safer school transport
system, the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) should
take into account all stakeholders, from government authori-
ties, to parents, including those that may arise indirectly, as
can be university researchers teams, who at a certain moment
can carry out research on the behavior of school transport
somewhere in the world. Since the 80s, the development of
new telematic technologies have enabled the development of
several intelligent transport systems, with the aim of providing
a service to a single user or a defined number of them (Traffic
managers, public and private Organizations, stakeholders and
others), and not as a global service where anyone interested
could make use of it [6].
The aim of this paper is to present a new scholar bus
monitoring system that implements localization and speed
sensors using the Internet of Things architecture. The use of
this system will not only allow parents to monitor the scholar
bus in order to know the location of their children or its aprox-
imate arrival time to school or home. In addition to parents,
new stakeholders may arise. For example, the local transport
authorities or even a research team from a university that is
interested in analyzing the behavior of school transportation in
a particular region of the world using aggregate data provided
by cloud services to determine when and where does the school
transportation violates the guidelines established by their local
authorities.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: In section II,
the design of the monitoring system for the school transport is
exposed. In Section III, the proposed hardware to implement
a mobile propagation node, localization and speed sensors on
school transportation is presented. Section IV presents how
the properties of ubiquity, uniqueness and discoverability are
implemented in the mobile propagation node, and localization
and speed sensors, to meet the paradigm of Internet of Things.
In Section V, we present a service that we developed that uses
the designed monitoring system. In section VI the results from
the developed service are presented. Finally in section VII we
present the conclusions and future work.
II. DESIGN OF THE MONITORING SYSTEM FOR
SCHOOL TRANSPORT
In this research, we propose a Monitoring System for
School Transport, based on the paradigm of the Internet of
Things, allowing the school transportation to have intelligence
and ability to provide information and features of discov-
erability and ubiquity, which allows different actors to use
the information obtained to give different uses; for instance
analysis and visualization using new paradigms such as cloud
computing and big data.
The system’s proposed hardware consists of a mobile
propagation node and localization and speed sensors as shown
in Fig 1.
Fig. 1. Mobile Propagation Node and Sensors of Localization and Speed
Through the mobile propagation node using the Message
Queuing Telemetry Transport connectivity protocol (MQTT)
[7], the internet is extended to reach the location and speed

‹,(((
sensors connected to it, so that they can transmit the location
and speed of school transportation in the form of small infor-
mation data packets called chirps. The packages will be sent
to the cloud by the mobile propagation node using the General
Packet Radio Service (GPRS) provided by cellular networks.
Both the mobile propagation node, as those, localization and
speed sensors are installed on school transportation.
III. PROPOSED HARDWARE
School transport differs from country to country. In some
countries, school buses (properly equipped) are constructed for
the sole purpose of serving as school transport; however in
other countries, the vans undergo a process of adaptation in
order to be allowed to be used as school transport. We rely on
these facts so that the hardware we propose can meet economic
feasibility and easy installation in any vehicle used as a school
transport anywhere in the world.
A. Mobile Propagation Node
The mobile propagation node was built with a
PIC18F45K20 microcontroller manufactured by Microchip
which is embedded in a DM164130-4 demo board. The
facilities offered by the PIC18F45K20 are: up to 16,384
single-word instructions, 1536 bytes of internal RAM, 36
terminals I/O, a EUSART serial port, architecture optimized
for C compilers, among others. These facilities allow us to
meet the objectives of the intelligent identification, locating,
tracking, monitoring, and managing the school transport,
taking into account the vision of IoT [8]. The block diagram
of the mobile propagation node is shown in Figure 2.
Peripheral and I/O ports that are not used by the
PIC18F45K20 can be used to add modules to the mobile node
propagation that enables other sensors connect to it.
The Internet of Things aims to extend the Internet to the
ubiquitous assets in the physical world. In this case we extend
the Internet to the localization and speed sensors to monitor
school transportation via mobile propagation node.
Fig. 2. Block Diagram of the Mobile Propagation Node and Sensors of
Localization and Speed
The Internet of Things over IP provides fundamental sup-
port for global communication and access to services and
information [9]. To be installed on school transportation,
mobile propagation node requires mobile communication. For
this reason, it will connect to the internet through the GPRS
standard of the physical layer, using the MQTT [7] protocol.
MQTT is a lightweight machine-to-machine communication
protocol, designed for devices with limited resources and
unreliable networks.
For an economical solution, the MQTT protocol is imple-
mented in the PIC18F45K20 microcontroller. For deployment
to the microcontroller, the debugger/programmer manufactured
by Microchip PICkit 3 was used. Microchips PICkit 3 In-
Circuit Debugger/Programmer uses in-circuit debugging logic
incorporated into each chip to provide a low-cost hardware
debugger and programmer. The MPLAB X is an Integrated
Development Environment (IDE) that we used to develop the
MQTT client code embedded in the PIC18F45K20. To do
this, we used the MPLAB XC compiler, a compiler language
C/C++.
The MQTT protocol implements the publish/subscribe ar-
chitecture [10] with a central broker in the cloud, so we get
the following benefits:
• Low coupling between business logic and sensors of
localization and speed.
• Availability of communication from many to many.
The availability of communication from many to many is
what allows us to integrate all stakeholders, from government
authorities, to parents, including those that may arise indirectly,
as can be teams of university researchers. Figure 3 shows
the publish/subscribe architecture with a central broker in the
cloud.
Fig. 3. Publish/Subscribe Architecture with a Central Broker in the Cloud
In publish/subscribe architecture, a client who needs data is
called subscriber and can be any stakeholder, such as a parent.
The subscriber registers its interest in a topic of a broker that
is in the cloud; topics of interest are the location and speed
of the school transport. The client responsible for sending
fresh data towards the broker is called Publisher; the mobile
propagation node we propose in this research, is the Publisher,
and is the one responsible for sending data of the location and
speed of the school transportation, which are provided by the
localization and speed sensors.
B. Localization and Speed Sensors
For information on the location and speed of school
transportation, the SIM908 module manufactured by SIMCom
Wireless Solutions Co. Ltd. was used. The SIM908 has lo-
calization and speed sensors embedded, and is a GSM/GPRS
module ideal for M2M applications, which combines GPS
technology for satellite navigation.
The compact design that integrates GPRS and GPS in
a SMT package saves time and money significantly in the
development of applications that require GPS technology. The
SIM908 module is controlled using AT commands (GSM
07.07, 07.05 and SIMCOM enhanced AT Commands) by using
the USART serial communication protocol. The main features
of the GPS module embedded into the SIM908 are:
• TTFF Time To First Fix - The time required by the
GPS receiver to acquire satellite signals and navigation
data, and calculate a position (called Fix).
◦ Cold Start: 30s (typical).
◦ Hot Start: 1s (typical).
• Accuracy Horizontal position: <2.5m CEP (Circular
Error Probable).
To reduce design time, the GPS/GPRS/GSM V3.0 module
manufactured by DFRobot (which has embedded the module
SIM908) was used. Figure 4 shows the GPS/GPRS/GSM V3.0
module.
Fig. 4. GPS/GPRS/GSM V3.0 Module manufactured by DFRobot
The block diagram of the mobile propagation node im-
planted in the DM164130-4 demo board and the localization
and speed sensors that are embedded into the GPS/GPRS/GSM
V3.0 module, which allow for control and communication
between them, is shown Figure 5.
Fig. 5. Block diagram of the Demo Card DM164130-4, and the
GPS/GPRS/GSM V3.0 Module
IV. UBIQUITY, UNIQUENESS AND
DISCOVERABILITY
We believe that you have to take into account the Radio-
Frequency Identification (RFID) tags due to the millions of
them existing in the world and transducers. The RFID tags are
used to identify things and transducers are devices that convert
energy from one domain to another and allow us to observe
the status of a physical entity.
The British employed RFID principles in World War II
to identify their aircrafts. In the 1960s, Los Alamos National
Laboratory incorporated RFID tags into employee badges to
automatically identify people, limit access to secure areas, and
make it harder to forge the badges. Niche domains have also
used RFID in various applications, such as to identify animals,
label airline luggage, time marathon runners, make toys inter-
active, prevent theft, and locate lost items. Nowadays, three
major organizations are pioneering its large-scale adoption:
Wal-Mart, Tesco, and the US Department of Defense. Each
aims to offer more competitive pricing by using RFID to lower
operational costs by streamlining the tracking of stock, sales,
and orders [11].
The transducers may be sensors or actuators. A sensor
converts a physical, biological or chemical parameter to an
electrical signal and an actuator accepts a data sample or
samples and converts them into an action [12].
For our work we select the EPCglobal framework as the
basis for implementing the IoT paradigm that allows us to
monitor school transportation through the localization and
speed sensors. The EPCglobal framework includes RFID tags
but will extend to include the location and speed sensors. The
EPCglobal framework, also serve as the basis for meeting the
objectives of ubiquity, uniqueness and discoverability needed
in the paradigm of IoT [8]. The framework of the EPCglobal
architecture is divided in layers of identification, capture and
exchange [13], [14] as shown in Figure 6.
The following subsections describe how the framework of
EPCglobal extends to integrate location and speed sensors to
achieve ubiquity, uniqueness and discoverability of them to
reach compliance with the paradigm of IoT.
Fig. 6. EPCglobal Architecture Framework (source: GS1)
A. Ubiquity
The ubiquity of the localization and speed data is accom-
plished by extending to them the Internet through the mobile
propagation node using the communication protocol MQTT,
via a mosquitto broker [15] located in a publicly accessible
sandbox server available at iot.eclipse.org, port 1883.

Fig. 8. Different representations of a physical object

Fig. 7. The ubiquity of the localization and speed sensors

Figure 7 illustrates how the ubiquity is achieved by using

Fig. 9. The sensors in the supply chain stage
the publish/subscribe architecture which is described in section
3.
Once installed on school transportation, the sensors begin
B. Uniqueness to send information in the domain of IoT, and in order to
be identified printed bar codes may be used with GS1 keys
The mobile propagation node and the location and speed
on school transportation or web services using their “EPC
sensors can be in two stages, and in any of the two stages
Pure Identity URI” as shown in Figure 10. The following
should be uniquely identified in the world. These two stages
describes the implementation of the different representations
are:
for the location and speed sensors.
• The supply chain.
• The operation of them on school transportation.
For identification of sensors we used the Electronic Product
Code (EPC) universal identifier of the EPCglobal framework
which provides a unique identifier to each object in the
physical world. The representation of an EPC identifier is
a Uniform resource identifier (URI) called ‘Pure Identity
URI”, and is used when referring to a physical object in the
information systems and business applications. The EPCglobal
Tag Data Standard [16] defines the format of EPC Pure Identity
URI, the Tag URI format and the compact binary format.
The latter two allow efficiently represent an EPC identifier
within the RFID tags. An EPC identifier can also be used
by barcode technology. To do this, we must convert the EPC
Pure Identity URI to a GS1 (General Specifications 1) Element Fig. 10. Web service to identify sensors
String from the GS1 system identifiers [17]. Figure 8 illustrates
the different ways it can represent a physical object according 1) EPC Pure Identity URI: Is the format that applications
to the context in which it is identified. use to uniquely identify each thing or concept in the world.
Once manufactured the mobile propagation node and the To ensure that the location and speed sensors can be
location and speed sensors, will go through the entire supply identified uniformly in the IoT applications, we have extended
chain until they are purchased at a point of sale by the end user. the EPC schemes to new Serialized Global Transducer Item
In the supply chain, enterprise applications can identify them Number (SGXIN) scheme that inherits from General Identifier
via RFID tags adhered to them or through bar codes printed (GID) as proposed in [18]. For a unique identification on the
on them as show in Figure 9. Each RFID tag contains the EPC planet for sensors we have extended the identification layer of
of the sensor in question. Similarly, each barcode contains the the framework of the EPCglobal architecture to integrate the
GS1 key of the sensor in question. standard IEEE 1451 of the transducers. Based on the IEEE
1451 standard, the uniqueness of the sensors is obtained by
using the field Universal Unique Identification (UUID) plus the
serial number of each sensor [18]. The UUID field consists of
four subfields: location, manufacturer, year and time [12]. To
subfield time, is considered the day of the year it was built x
1000 + the number produced on that day [18]. To fill the UUID
field shown in Table 1, we use the following data: the mobile
propagation node was built in the graduate department of the
Technological Institute of Culiacan located at the geospatial
coordinates 24°47’18” N 107°23’48” W on November 1, 2014
and the first produced that day.
TABLE I. UUID F IELD
Field Value Field Bits Binary Value
N/S N 1 1
Latitude 24°47’18” 8+6+6 00011000101111010010
E/W W 1 0
Longitue 107°23’48” 8+6+6 01101011010111110000
Manufacturer 0 4 0000
Year 2014 12 011111011110
Time 304001 22 0001001010001110000001
The maximum number of transducers that can handle the
mobile propagation node is 255 to meet the standard IEEE
1451, which dictates that a Smart Transducer Interface Module
(STIM) (in the form of the mobile propagation node) can
handle up to 255 transducers, which can be serialized from
1 to 255, since 0 has a special meaning [19]. Transducer
number is represented by 8 bits. As the mobile propagation
node extends the Internet to a location sensor and one of speed,
we can assign serial numbers 1 and 2 respectively. Because of
this, there are two SGXIN-URI; one representing the location
sensor and other representing the speed sensor. The semantic
SGXIN-URI format is:
urn:epc:id:sgxin:NS.Latitude.EW.Longitude.Manufacturer.
Year.Time.TransducerSerialNumber
According to the EPC scheme designed for SGXIN, the
location and speed sensors are expressed with the following
SGXIN-URIs (Note that the numbers are represented in their
decimal value):
Location Sensor:
urn:epc:id:sgxin:1.101330.0.439792.0.2014.304001.1
Speed Sensor:
urn:epc:id:sgxin:1.101330.0.439792.0.2014.304001.2
C. DISCOVERABILITY
Using the paradigm of IoT, the proposed sensors send
data about the location and speed of the school transport to
Internet through a broker, as well as billions of objects in
the world are sending their own data to the Internet. Users
requiring school transport information will have to make use
of Discovery Service (DS) to know where and how to obtain
such information. The EPCglobal organization defines the
component EPC Discovery Services (EPCDS) for this purpose,
but its design is still under investigation [13]. Because of this,
we implemented the Secure Discovery Service Model (SecDS)
[20] . To do this, we use the components Object Naming
Service (ONS) [21], and EPC Information Services (EPCIS)
[22] of the EPCglobal Architecture Framework.
V. SCHOOL TRANSPORT TRACKING
With the aim that any interested user could be able to
monitor in real time a vehicle being used as a school trans-
port in relation to its location and speed, we designed the
web application “School Transport Tracking” based on the
paradigm of IoT. The application was installed on Heroku, a
cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS) that enables the application
to run completely in the cloud and interact with it through a
browser. Figure 11 describes the steps that are necessary to
trace school transport.
Fig. 11. Scholar bus monitoring system
• 1) When the location and speed sensors installed
on the school transport are energized, the propa-
gation node connects to Mosquitto broker available
at m2m.eclipse.org on port 1883 using the MQTT
protocol. Once connected to the broker, the sensors
begin to publish their data to it.
• 2) When a client has the need to track the school
transport uses an android application or a web appli-
cation that resides on Heroku accessed by the URL
http://www.transportes-inteligentes-itc.com.mx/ using
any web browser on any device.
• 3) Once the client is authenticated, the application
subscribes to the same Mosquitto broker in order to
be notified whenever the sensors publish data about
the location and speed of the school transport.
• 4) Whenever the sensors publish their data to the
broker, the broker notifies the subscribed web app with
such data and stores them in MongoDB, a document-
oriented database.
• 5) In addition to storing the data, the application sends
them as parameters to the “Google Maps JavaScript
API v3” in order to map the location of the school
transport.
• 6) The web application builds a response with the
information received from the Google Maps API and
sends it through the chain to the browser where you
can view the map with the location and speed of the
school transport as shown in Figure 12.
VI. R ESULTS
The system was tested during two months from 6:00 am
to 7:30 am from Monday to Friday in a vehicle used as school
transport in order to validate if the system offers better security

Fig. 12. Mapping the Location and Speed of the School Transport
to users. The information that the monitoring system received
was stored in a non relational database. During the first month
a trained driver used the system and an untrained driver used
it during the second month.
The following results were obtained from the data analysis:
• First month, trained driver: The 100% of the time
the vehicle’s speed did not exceed the 60kph speed
limit.
• Second month, untrained driver: The 15% of the
time the vehicle’s speed exceeded the 60kph speed
limit.
On 02/23/2015 the system was used for 25 minutes. From
this 25 minutes the 1.4% of the time, the system reported
that the vechicle exceeded the speed limit. Here we can notice
that although the percentage of time that the vehicle exceeded
the speed limit is short, during 21 seconds the law was
violated. From this analysis we can notice that the safety of
the passengers can be increased thanks to the effective realtime
monitoring the system provides.
VII. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
In recent years, the Internet of Things has developed very
rapidly and has become a development trend to improve living
conditions in the world as a whole. One of the feasible areas
to cover with this new paradigm in the field of smart cities is
the monitoring of school transport. Considering the above, we
propose a scholar bus monitoring system easy to implement
in any vehicle and usable by anyone or any “thing” using the
paradigm of the Internet of Things in order to provide greater
security to the users of this medium of transport.
The Internet of Things applied to the monitoring of the
school transport will play an important role in the management
of urban transport in the cities of the future. So, as future work,
we consider integrating wireless communication protocols to
the mobile propagation node, to add other sensors to it such
as proximity sensors at the school transportation stops, in the
passenger seat and integrate them to the Internet of things. It
will also be necessary to create models to analyze data that
provides the monitoring system using the Big Data approach.
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