Integrated ubiquitous connectivity and centralised information platform for intelligent public transportation systems

The study proposes an easily deployable platform for providing ubiquitous connectivity to public transportation vehicles. The platform is capable to exploit the connectivity offered by heterogeneous wireless networks owned by different operators and it integrates a centralised information system (CIS) which stores the context information (CI) characterising the heterogeneous networks. The study describes the network and traffic monitoring processes, proposes a synchronisation mechanism between the mobile routers of the vehicles and the CIS and a vertical handover (VHO) mechanism adapted to the developed architecture. Simulation results based on CI acquired during field tests are reported in the study. These results validate the developed VHO mechanism using the locally available or the centralised CI.