PUBLIC TRANSPORT ACCESS SYSTEM FOR PEOPLE WITH VISUAL DISABILITY, CASE OF STUDY: TUNJA, COLOMBIA Cristian Rolando Vargas Abril Electronic Engineering Faculty Santo Tomás University Tunja, Colombia cristian.vargasa@usantoto.edu. co Andres C. Puin Najar Electronic Engineering Faculty Santo Tomás University Tunja, Colombia andres.puin@usantoto.edu.co Laura Alejandra Martinez- Tejada Electronic Engineering Faculty Santo Tomás University Tunja, Colombia laura.martinez@usantoto.edu.c o Pablo A. Álvarez C Electronic Engineering Faculty Santo Tomás University Tunja, Colombia pablo.alvarez @usantoto.edu.co Abstract— Due to the significant number of people with disabilities in the city of Tunja, especially the visual disabilities, and because of the low city’s infrastructure, it is necessary to formulate proposals that help improve the quality of life of the population, in this case with the improvement of the accessibility in the transport for people with visual disability through a routes information system for the city public transport. Due to lack of public transport routes information, the population with visual disabilities avoids taking this mobility resources autonomously, which is why we designed and developed two devices that will support the mobility of the population in the different system routes. The first is a static element that can be controlled through tactile elements and can be anchored to a bus stop for public service. In this phase the device will provide information and act as a bus stop assistant through audiovisual means of seven routes that run through the race 12 with street 19 in the first stage. The second component is an information system of the bus location with its route through audiovisual means perceptible to the user. The device contains the information of about 56 strategic points that cover the seven routes selected and its configuration can be modified by the bus operator according to the route that is assigned to it. Due to the infrastructure of the system and the lack of stations or stops established in the city, the device is supported by a GPS for the location and search of the various strategic points of the route. The equipment generated is tested, to verify its operation in the city, in that section include tests to the GPS positioning system to verify the alert accuracy of the points established as stops along with the audiovisual information system. Keywords—Accessibility, GPS, Visual disability, Public Transport System, Universal design. I. INTRODUCTION One of the main problems facing the disabled population is the access to public transport in the cities; for a city like Tunja access to public transport services autonomously becomes difficult due to the system infrastructure, which does not allow the person to identify, recognize and take the different routes to mobilize through the city freely. This type of circumstances generates and forces the population with visual disabilities to omit the use of this service or simply use it with different personal aids such as the help of a companion. The development of this research was deployed due to the interest of contributing and generating solutions from engineering to the social sphere, as well as implementing new strategies that not only improve accessibility to public transport service of people, but also improve its quality and strengthen its infrastructure. Currently, the cities have tried to provide solutions to this problem through mobile devices, wireless networks, global positioning systems, tactile information systems, among others. However, these have been oriented to urban transport systems of cities that have a great civil and technological infrastructure. For a city like Tunja, the system of buses and facilities do not fit with most of the models proposed in other investigations by the low infrastructure, reason why it was necessary to propose a system that fit the needs of small or medium cities where there is no space for the construction of large scale civil infrastructure. The architectural proposal generated consists of two devices: an accessible route stop assistant that contains all the Tunja transport system information such as schedules, stops, routes, etc., and a device that provides information to the bus interior about the stops and the route. These systems rely on tools such as GPS, touchscreens and audiovisual media, and principles such as universal design and accessibility so that there is no better quality of life for visually impaired people, but for the general population. II. MATERIALS AND METHODS In the development of the research it was necessary the extraction of data information with a mixed approach. A qualitative part to know the needs and difficulties of the visually impaired population when the urban public transport in the city is used, and another of a quantitative type that corresponds to the electronic design of the devices and tests implemented. Regarding the development of transport-focused devices, some implementations are documented; however, the objective of this research is analyzed from another perspective, which addresses the improvement of accessibility in public transport in small or medium-sized cities such as Tunja, therefore the type of research selected is of an exploratory type. For the collection of qualitative data about the problems and needs of the population in terms of accessibility to transport, the 978-1-5386-0624-7/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE