NeoTransit

An app that indicates the transfer times, routes and stops of public transport, to promote its use and improve its service.

Moving around the cities has gotten more complicated because the distances are longer due to the population growth and the expansion of urban areas.

Mobility is a fundamental element for competitiveness of cities because it determines the way in which talent moves to perform their daily activities.

Currently, public transportation is the most efficient mobility method in the cities, is more ecologic because it transports a bigger amount of people using one motor than the private car, and since it is cheaper it becomes more accessible for all the population. However, in Mexico the public transportation system is not efficient enough for those who require it. 

In the most important cities in Mexico (Monterrey, Guadalajara and Mexico City), approximately 124 million people use public transport per month.

According to the 2021 National Survey of Government Quality and Impact that was carried out by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), only 38% of the population felt satisfied with the service quality of automotive public transport, and 62.3% were satisfied with metro and light rail service.

The Metro System of Mexico City transports more than 4.5 million passengers every day, who qualify the service of the transport with a grade of 51 points out of 100, and if we consider the rest of public transportation in the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico, the grade descends to 44 of 100 points.

Also, in accordance with the Urban Mobility Index, which evaluates 20 cities composed of 203 municipalities that concentrate 43% of Mexico population and 68% of the urban economic activity, 42% of all respondents mentioned using public transport to get to work or place of study, and qualify the service with 41/100 points. Analyzing this level of satisfaction in detail 72% of the answers mentioned that the information about schedules, stops and routes is not available, and 37% perceive that the waiting time between public transport units is not short.

This becomes a problem considering that the users of public transport use it because is their only way of transportation, and also considering that mexican cities haven´t prioritized the mobility of people and have given more importance to the flow of cars, which generates greater congestion, generating more issues such like pollution, stress and Commuter towns, in which people only arrive to their homes to sleep because they spend a considerable part of their days in traffic, and can't use that time to carry out activities that increase their overall well-being.

Nowadays we are all in a hurry, running from home to school or work, then to the bank, to the store, to pay taxes, and finally back home. Is not weird to understand why people in cities rather using a private car than using public transport, because the latter is not efficient enough, and We need a solution that saves us time of our days, so we can spend it on things we like to, and not in traffic.

My solution to the dissatisfaction with public transport, the lack of information regarding schedules, stops and routes of public transport, and the lack of time to develop well-being activities for the cities population is an app that calculates the transfer times through the city depending on the origin and destination of the user, indicating the faster routes and the stops of public transport that you may board. 

Also, the app would include in the calculations the time it would take you to arrive at the stop depending if you're walking, on a bike or a wheelchair. For this, the app collects information of the velocity of your movement through the space, this considering that every person moves in different velocities according to their possibilities.

In addition, the app collects information to corroborate that the calculated transfer time was correct, and if not, how long was the time difference and which variables affected this result, like traffic, an accident, a construction, or the absence of sidewalks.

Finally, the app includes a comments and suggestions section, in which users can rate their experience using a certain bus or subway route, and add complaints and suggestions regarding their experience using it. Thus making possible the creation of a community that provides feedback on the service and sees which option is best for them when they want to use public transport, seeking too that more people decide to reduce the use of the car and implement the use of public transport to move around the cities

According to the Methodological synthesis of urban passenger transport statistics 2021, in the three most important cities of Mexico (Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey) and Pachuca, the number of passengers in June 2021 was 125,343,594. With this data we can infer that approximately 1504.12 million people use public transport to move through the cities. NeoTransit is an app that will help them to arrive at their destination in a shorter time taking into consideration if they walk, if they have a disability, or the economic possibilities they can afford considering that the prices of public transport vary by whether it is a bus, metro, light rail, etc.

I’m an Architecture student interested in Urban Planning, and in my first year I was in the Built Environment Area, in which I shared classes with Civil Engineering and Urbanism students. Since then I became more conscious of the urban problems that we face as city dwellers. It was at this time when I depended on public transportation to get to my university, and the wait time in the bus stop could take from 20 to 40 minutes, and the time so I could arrive at my destination would take between 1 to 2 hours depending on traffic. Even If a used the metro system I could only save 20 minutes because there is no metro station close, i had to take a bus and 40 minutes later get off the bus and walk to get on the metro station, then get on the subway and being in the middle of a crowd for 20 to 30 minutes more, to finally get off the metro and walk for 20 minutes to arrive home.

This caused me stress because buses in Mexico usually don't stop if they don't want to or if they are full, and waiting for the next one to pass can be anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour. I wasn’t sleeping well and I wasn’t able to do leisure activities, and barely had time to do all my homework and projects, or to cook healthy homemade food (i am studying in a city that is not my hometown), and since my family can’t afford to buy me a car, I had no other option.

Through my life I have made use of the public tranportation system in different cities from Mexico, like Saltillo, Monterrey, Guadalajara and Mexico City, being these last three the most important and populated cities of the country, so I have experienced myself the quality of this system. Also, in my close social circle (friends and family) and in college with classmates and teachers, there is people that have used the public transport and the general opinion of this service is that the system is precarious, inefficient and comfortless.

With my solution I expect that people that can't afford to get a car have an alternative so they can plan their days without the stress of not knowing how many time they are gonna have to spend to travel around the city when they use public transpor, and also to make conscious about the actual conditions of public transport service in Mexico, so the population has the real numbers of time and cost of this service, and among all look out for solutions to problems like the lack of enough buses per route or how to improve the routes that already exist.

In the next year I would like to have the app in the app stores, so it is available to everyone with a phone. I would like the app to be a tool for at least 100000 people who lives in cities, and with that we would get a community that cares and uses public transport, and also with the recopilation of the data that the app gets, we would create a monthly report that will be publish online so people can observe if the quality of the service and times are the ones they want in the public tranposrt system, and if the results are not wat people expected, look for a way to pass the complain the enterprise that is in charge of the buses and the metro, and reach an agreement creating and alliance that benefits the app and the public transport managers, and of course the population that use the app.

My solution is an app that uses Geospacial Technology, like Google Maps, but also uses data obtained from the users experience who moves in public transport. This data is time of waiting the transport, time of travel, time of walking, velocity of walking or moving (also measures the time when you move in a bike or a wheelchair), your age, your height, the grade you give to the experience in the transport which could be metro, bus, light train, etc. and also considers if there is traffic due to traffic, a construction or an accident, and with this information we feed and artificial intelligence that is in charge of all the calculations and variables.

I would like the app to be a tool for at least 100000 people who lives in cities, in order to create a data base with enough information for the artificial intelligence

I don't know how to program or create an app. I have programming notions but it would be impossible for me to create an app from scratch.

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