Title: Smart Riyadh Metro Routing: Applied Computing for Transit Systems

Speakers:

Dr. Ghada Al-Hudhud, Associate Professor, IT Department, KSU

Ms. Maha Alrasheed, BSc student, IT Department, KSU

Ms. Najat Alrashed, BSc student, IT Department, KSU

Ms. Rawan Alkhulaiwi, BSc student, IT Department, KSU

Ms. Sara Bahomaid, BSc student, IT Department, KSU

Ms. Shahad Aljarbou, BSc student, IT Department, KSU

Synopsis:

Riyadh city has a large population. This increase of population, leads to increase in traffic congestion. Rising traffic congestion is unavoidable. The high commission for the development of Riyadh proposed King Abdulaziz Project for Riyadh Public Transport to overcome congestion problems.

There are many existing metro applications around the world with different functionality. What is so unique about the proposed application is that the application developed for Riyadh city, which consist of a modern networked metro system, supported and fed by multilevel networks of buses transport system. In addition, it incorporates hybrid functionalities from different applications; to produce an application that provides optimum routes.

Riyadh Metro Routing is an Android application that applies computing in transit systems. It combines both, metro and buses in its routing process to help metro users to not only reach their destination wherever they were, but also reaching it in an optimal time saving time and effort. The application is based on A* algorithm to calculate the shortest path considering incremental delay, buses and metros schedules. In addition, Route It allows saving user’s locations, as favorite to reach them quickly again. As we go towards smart cities, users will be notified if any closed roads/stations or congestion exists in any point included in the route.

One possible scenario for explaining the idea behind the proposed solution is that there is a person who wants to go from his current location to King Abdul-Aziz historical center. For example, there might be two route options for the user after implementing different calculation. Route1 is optimal even though it is longer than route2 since the calculation is based on bus congestions and metro schedule.

The challenge is that the transportation network is still under development, so to validate our goal; a 3D simulation for Riyadh city with the transportation network is produced using Unity game engine.

In conclusion, the project incorporates the knowledge in the IT field in a way that serve the community. So by developing this application we are helping to solve the congestion problem, which the society suffers from.

Date/Time: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 at 12:00pm

Location: Khadija Auditorium, F49 in Building 6  - Broadcast to Room 2090 in CCIS Building 31