JOURNAL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2, JUNE 2010 7 © 2010 JCSE http://sites.google.com/site/jcseuk/ User-centered Public Transport Departure and Arrival System using Automated Image Recognition Mohd Helmy Abd Wahab, Noor Liyana Abdul Karim, Herdawatie Abdul Kadir, Ayob Johari, Ariffin Abdul Mutalib, Rahmat Sanudin, Roslina Mohd Sidek, Noraziah Ahmad Abstract—This paper reports on an ongoing study, which solves a problem in notifying passengers about bus schedule at the bus station. This system is called Public Transport Departure and Arrival System (PTDAS), incorporating image recognition through a digital camera which is programmed with MATLAB for automated input module. It starts with analyzing a number of previous works of bus scheduling as the basis of the study. The development methodology of the PTDAS is the core of this paper which comes next together, and described at length. Some testing together with the results is discussed in the following section. This paper ends by addressing the potential implementation of the proposed system. Index Terms— Image recognition, bus scheduling, user-centered application ——————————  —————————— 1 INTRODUCTION he rapid growth in the field of information and com- munication technology has made information disse- mination become important. Notifying the passengers regarding any status is one of the functions of informa- tion dissemination. Currently, public transport passen- gers gather information about the travel information on printed tickets. On the tickets, passengers are provided with information including destination, time, plate num- ber, and seat. While, additional information regarding the bus detail such as passenger capacity, delayed time, and platform change are not mentioned in the ticket but the information is available at the particular authorized coun- ter. This scenario is different from flight departure and arrival system, in which passengers access complete in- formation including destination, seat number, date, time, and flight on the printed ticket. In addition to the printed ticket, announcement regarding departure and arriving time are displayed at the terminal screens. This could no- tify passengers to be ready at particular gates in advanced before departure. This study maps the system that is provided in airports into bus station, which provides bus departure and arriv- al time to passengers. This system is useful to passengers to notify about the delay. The scenario is similar to the system in the airport. An added component to the pro- posed system is that it utilizes image recognition technol- ogy. This study is carried out in a state in Malaysia, and is aimed at achieving the objectives as stated in the fol- lowing section. The objective of the study is to develop a system that notifies passengers about bus departure and arrival sche- dule called Public Transport Departure and Arrival Sys- tem. This system utilizes an image recognition module for input. Data are stored in a database. This study also tests the system in terms of functionality and display. For the purposes of this study the scope is limited to single-row character bus plate only, and tested for im- plementation in Johor. In addition, this paper focuses on the development and functional testing part starting with the system architecture. 2 SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE The architecture of PTDAS is provided in illustration in Figure 1. Detailed explanation is provided next. ———————————————— Corresponding Author Mohd Helmy Abd Wahab is with the Department of Computer Engineer- ing, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Batu Pahat, Johor, Ma- laysia. T