Analysis and Design of an Optimized Automatic Fare Collection System for Addis Ababa Light Rail Transit
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Date
2019-08
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Recently, everything in the world becomes smart and digitalized. Many advances have been made in the transportation sector too. However, railway transport in Ethiopia has been an area where such new advances have turned their faces out. Therefore, this paper, will introduce an Automatic Fare Collection system (AFC) to up bring the railway transportation system in Ethiopia to the best standard. In addition, this paper will focus on different ways of implementing AFC, which will be suitable for AA-LRT. AFC is one of the important technologies in railway transportation around the world. Different countries use different ways of implementation of AFC to their railway transportation. One of the aims of this paper is to study different implementation mechanisms of countries and analyses the best and suitable standard for AA-LRT. The cost analysis should also be considered when such kinds of technologies are implemented. Nowadays, in AA-LRT every train is controlled by a conductor. The conductor will collect money from each passenger and issues tickets and the printed paper or tokens are used as tickets. This process needs man power and the passengers whom are utilizing the transportation services will not be satisfied. Because, they will wait a lot of time on the queuing to get ticket from the cashier. In the proposed system, every AA-LRT stations have one or more RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) Reader. RFID is a technology whereby digital data encoded in RFID tags or smart labels are captured by a reader through radio waves. The Reader senses the RF signals coming from the passenger identification card and thus recognizes the entry, existence and exit of the passenger. Based on the signals from the card is cut off, the fare of the journey is calculated and is deducted from the passenger’s account, which is linked with the backend system. The RFID card will recharge in different ways, it may recharge from stations, mobile account and/or bank account. The system will deliver an end-to-end solution for fare collection, ticketing, and payments that provides secure and faster transactions, more convenience and smooth passenger flow during peak hours, and efficient collection of fare ensuring no fraud takes place.
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Keywords
AFC, RFID, LF, HF, UHF, RF, Radio Wave, AA-LRT