Mobile mBus System Using Near Field Communication

Abstract

Near field communication (NFC) is a form of short range contactless and wireless communication between devices, a subset of RFID, with a much shorter communication range for security purposes. Any objects can become a passive device by tagging a NFC tag on them. In the past, RFID and smart card was a feasible choice for bus fare/token ticketing as their tag can cost as low as 10 cents/piece, being also the average price for a NFC tag. However, their tag readers are expensive, such as passive RFID and smart card reader, and not universal. Thus, this project proposes an economical and portable ticketing system, named mBus, designed to (1) simplify payments for bus rides and (2) low-cost fare/token tracking using NFC. The proposed mBus consist of (1) bTag, (2) bReader, and (3) bData. The bTag are able to (1) store information, and (2) communicate with an active reader device, bReader. User can purchase a bTag, being a NFC tag, and a bus pass. bTag contain crucial information such as user information and remaining token/fare. A mobile application, named as bReader, allows the bus driver to (1) read bTag, (2) act as a payment gateway, and (3) create new users. The system record user data in bData, being a remote SQL database using PHP web pages. The system is being designed as mobile application since mobile devices has huge market in the portable devices industry and recent mobile system has NFC chips installed in them, i.e. anyone who desires to use this bus fare/token ticketing system can find and obtain inexpensive NFC-embedded mobile device easily.