Find a Bus Online

Inspiration

As environmental issues are continually being brought to light, public transport has increasingly been seen as a partial solution to carbon emission, as it keeps more cars off the road, and is a more efficient mode of transport in terms of carbon emission per passenger. To encourage more people to take public transportation, passenger convenience will be an important incentive, which is what we hope to do with our website.

What it does

Find a Bus Online allows commuters to scan QR codes or visit findabus.online to quickly find public transportation near them to their destination. The website allows users to input information about their location and destination, as well as the maximum distances they are willing to walk to find the stop, and maps their bus route and displays a map with their estimated travel time.

How we built it

First, we designed the look of the interface and the functionality part of the page. Next we began work implementing the our vision into code, starting with the basic UI structure and function. Next we attempted to connect our code with our domain. Then, we created the map feature which allows users to visualize their bus route. Lastly, we added a QR code feature, where scanning the QR codes posted at bus stops automatically brings the commuter to the findabus.online website and enters their start location as their current bus stop.

Challenges we ran into

When connecting our website code to our domain, we had trouble with retrieving the domain's DNS record, as the DNS servers have not updated so our online website is not yet connected to our code.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The Find a Bus Online user interface is extremely user friendly and the QR code feature is extremely helpful for busy commuters looking to travel via public transport as soon as possible.

What we learned

As we had team members of vastly different skill and experience levels, we each learned something different in accordance with our contributions to the project. As a team, we learned to work through complications, as well as the process and planning behind development.

What's next for Find a Bus Online

Next, we plan to save user data allowing the website to predict where a user may want to go at that time from previous travels at similar times. We also plan to add different language settings so increase the user friendliness of findabus.online. The site would also include features that track road accidents and plan accordingly. We also plan to create an app for Find a Bus Online that has similar features to the website, in addition to a feature that allows the app to send notifications or texts to the phone when the bus is near.