Development of a LoRa-Based LRT Real-Time Train Tracker with Arrival Time Estimation

Dealing with heavy traffic, safety concerns, endless lines at train stations, and overcrowded, unreliable public transportation is an all-too-familiar struggle for commuters in the Philippines. A real-time train tracking system for the Manila Light Railway Transit (LRT) was developed to ease the burden of daily commuters. The system consists of a RAK7246G WisGate Developer D0 gateway, a GY-NEO6MV2 NEO-6M Ublox Flight Controller GPS Module, and an Arduino LoRaWAn device with built-in LoRa module. An industrial-grade Browan Pico Next gateway, courtesy of Packetworx, was also used to get better results. An Android application was developed on a mobile phone to display the real-time train location on the LRT's route map and the train's daily schedule. The application can also calculate and display the estimated time of arrival of the train. To obtain the real-time location of the train, speed-sensor nodes, GPS, along LoRa nodes, and gateways were deployed on the train and the LRT stations. The sensor nodes communicate with the LoRa gateways by sending data packets containing the sensor data. The data gathered is stored in The Things Stack Network Server and can be retrieved by the application that processes the data. The train's estimated arrival time using the developed mobile app registered an accuracy of 99.52%.