Originally Posted by
tandempower
I met an engineering student who programmed her own bus tracking app after she saw the one her mother uses while visiting her during a vacation. I should have asked how she tracked the buses to map their location. Maybe they already had tracking but not a full comprehensive map that shows all the buses at the same time.
And maybe she was a magician? This is by no means hitech anymore. There are bus (and truck, family members, etc.) tracking apps left and right. It just takes a GPS. Active tracking requires a GPS that periodically transmits position - usually thru the cell network to a central computer that simply updates the last position of the bus/truck/etc. by updating a database where it tracks each bus because each such entity has a device identity also sent by the GPS. More and more metro bus systems now provide that real time data over the web to anybody that wants it. So everybody is free to write their own apps like your friend apparently did.
Any city that wants to put this on their buses now have proven case studies, tutorials, off the shelf hardware, etc. For example
https://www.researchgate.net/publica...Display_System. Want to put wifi on your bus? Just buy a product like this one...
https://mobileonboard.com/beam-bus-wifi-systems/