DigiSync Meter
Developing a more efficient solution for recalibration of taxi meters
This project was undertaken as part of the Project Club (SYNC) of Computer Society of India — Thadomal Shahani Engineering College. In the Project Club, second year students act as mentors to guide first year participants in realizing a project of their choice.
Duration: 3 months
Background
Auto Rickshaws and Taxis are one of the primary ways to get around most Indian cities. But due to the ever changing cost of commodities, rickshaw drivers need frequent fare revisions to remain profitable.
The Problem
All rickshaw and taxi fares are calculated by a meter. Whenever a fare revision takes place, a physical chip inside each meter needs to replaced with a new one containing the updated fare.
The cost of manufacturing these chips as well as the manpower required to manually repair these meters, is massive. The process itself is also quite inefficient. The drivers are unable to ply their vehicles for 4–5 days during this phase.
Team
- Varun Pimple
- Aarti Punjabi
- Nilesh Jain (Mentor)
- Uddhav Bhosle (Mentor)
Role
Worked as a team to ideate, conduct interviews, develop the prototype and film the project video.
Research
We interviewed 5 drivers across 3 locations. We used the following methods to organise our insights:
- Stakeholders
- Persona
- Journey Map
Stakeholders
- Rickshaw/Taxi Drivers: The people who are directly affected by this process
- Testing and Repair Centres: Responsible for the process of recalibration and testing
- Regional Transport Office: Overseeing the entire process
Persona
Journey Map
Prototyping
After analysing the pain points,we decided to develop a prototype rickshaw meter that could eliminate the waiting time for the drivers, as well as the entire process of manufacturing and replacing chips. Our prototype was based on an Arduino micro controller and a wireless module that we used to change the fare wirelessly.
The Build
We used a bicycle to emulate the rickshaw. Using a reed switch and magnet attached to the wheel, we were able to count the number of rotations of the wheel and thereby the distance travelled. We used this as input to the Arduino and programmed it to calculate the fare based on a base fare and multipliers for distance covered and waiting time. An LCD Display was used to show the current values of fare, distance and wait time.
To change the fare wirelessly, we attached an HC-05 Bluetooth® module that could communicate with a smartphone. For this purpose, we used an Android™ app called ‘Ardudroid’ developed by Hazim Bitar licensed under the Apache License.
Project Video
You can check out the working model of the prototype here: vimeo.com/247435807
