Integrated cashless payment system for the Kayoola EVS bus

Abstract

Public service transportation is the main mode of transport not only in Uganda, but the entire Africa at large. One of the main challenges faced by this industry, especially on passenger transportation is the lack of accountability in bus fare collection between the bus operators and the bus owners. To solve this challenge, long distance passenger vehicles have a ticketing system that is used for payment, unfortunately, the same system cannot be used for payment within the city or for short distance payment for it is cumbersome and not feasible in terms of applicability for it requires a single person to issue tickets to all passengers. Hence the main objective is to develop a cashless payment system that is convenient for short distance passengers and at the same time improve on the passenger experience on the bus. This report explains the implementation of a cashless passenger payment system, using two broad methods, mobile money payment and RFID payment for Kiira Motors’ Kayoola EVS buses. Mobile Money Payment is implemented within a mobile application, through the mobile application, a passenger is provided with an interface whereby they can pay for there bus fare after booking for a bus and a ticket is automatically provided to them as a Quick Response (QR) code which is scanned on the QR reader installed on the bus to validate payment. The RFID payment is implemented using RFID cards with passengers’ personal information and payment information, Bus fare is paid by a user scanning the RFID card on the card reader installed on the bus. Both the Mobile money payment and the RFID payment system receive location data from the GPS on the bus to determine the boarding location and destination of each passenger for automatic bus fare deduction and consequently communicate to passengers their respective destinations via the multimedia system installed on the bus. The Mobile money payment, RFID payment and the GPS both integrate/communicate with each other from the cloud database (Firebase cloud).