Passengers have no live view of where a bus is or when it will pass their village. They find out by waiting at the road.

FAST Bus adds information only

Fares and ticketing do not change

Owners keep running their own buses

Passengers

Wait at the road for an unknown time, in sun or rain, and cannot plan around a bus that is late or full.

Drivers

Have no simple way to tell people further along the road that the bus is full or has broken down.

Bus owners

The project brief says owners usually hear about breakdowns and delays by phone, after they happen.

Land Transport Authority

Has no live, regular feed of trips per route, travel times, loads, or which villages go without service.

Passengers use a phone browser. Drivers, owners, the LTA and a platform administrator each sign in to their own area.

Passengers

Find a bus by village, see arrival times and set a leave-now alert. In Gagana Sāmoa or English, with no account.

Drivers

A phone on the dashboard linked to one bus. PIN sign-in, Start and End trip, passenger count and status buttons.

Bus owners

Manage their own buses, drivers, phones, routes and schedules. Live fleet map and trip replay.

Land Transport Authority

Live map of every participating bus, route approvals, operator directory, reports and CSV export.

01

Owner, then LTA

Set up and approve the route

The owner draws the route on a map, or drives it once with the driver app

Villages along the route are found from the master list

The LTA approves the route before passengers can see it

Editing an approved route sends it back to the LTA for review

02

Driver

Start the trip

Sign in with a PIN on the dashboard phone

Pick today's route and press Start

Positions are uploaded every 7 seconds

Without signal, positions are kept on the phone and sent later

03

Server

Work out arrival times

Find routes passing within 2 km of the passenger and the destination, in the right direction

Arrival time is the road distance left divided by the bus's recent speed

With no recent speed reading, it assumes 28 km/h

Positions over 60 s old widen the range

04

Passenger

Decide when to leave

Buses are listed soonest first

A leave-now alert says get ready, then leave now

A notice arrives if the bus is marked full or broken down

Buses not yet running show their usual time at the village

Good to know

Routes follow the road: drawn routes are snapped to roads, recorded routes follow the GPS trail. · The 2 km walking distance is a setting the administrator can change.

Find my bus

Pick a village or use GPS. English or Gagana Sāmoa switch at the top.

Pick a village

107 villages and landmarks on Upolu and Savaiʻi.

Every bus

Route, owner and current village. Sample data; figures are illustrative.

Live map

Buses on Upolu on a demonstration morning. Positions stream to the page as they arrive. Sample data; figures are illustrative.

Distance along the road

Arrival time is the road distance left divided by the bus's average speed over its last six positions.

Uncertain estimates show a range

Longer or less certain estimates show a range, such as 6 to 9 min. If the last position is over 60 s old, the range widens.

Leave-now alert

Leave time is arrival minus walk, time to get out and a safety margin. Alerts say get ready, then leave now.

Full or broken down

If the driver marks the bus full or broken down, passengers with an alert on that bus get a notice.

01

Sign in with a PIN

The dashboard phone is linked to one bus. The driver enters the 4-digit PIN their owner set.

02

Pick the route and press Start

Today's scheduled routes are listed first. GPS then runs on its own and positions upload every 7 seconds.

03

Keep the passenger count

Large plus and minus buttons record how many are on board, shown against the bus's seats.

04

Flag bus full, break or breakdown

One tap each. Passengers with an alert on that bus get a notice if it is full or has broken down.

05

Press End at the last stop

Without signal, the phone keeps up to 2,000 positions and sends them later. Above 8 km/h the screen dims.

01

Register and get approved

The owner registers online. The LTA or an administrator approves the owner before any of their buses appear to passengers.

02

Add buses, drivers and phones

Buses with plate, colour and seats. Drivers with a 4-digit PIN. Each dashboard phone is linked to one bus, and the phones page shows when it was last seen and its battery.

03

Draw or record each route

Draw it on the map or drive it once with the driver app. Villages along it are found automatically. The owner then submits it, and the LTA approves it or returns it with a note.

04

Set schedules and usual times

The days and hours each bus runs each route, and the usual time it passes remote villages.

05

Watch the fleet and replay trips

Live fleet map with warnings for breakdowns, phones silent for 15 minutes, low battery and buses not started 30 minutes into their usual hours. Trip replays go back 14 days.

LTA dashboard

Buses running, stale positions, approved routes and passengers on board, above the live map. Sample data; figures are illustrative.

Filter the map

By island, route and owner. Only buses whose owners take part appear.

Stale positions counted

A bus with no position for 60 seconds or more is counted as stale.

Approvals and directory

Route and owner approvals, and a directory of every owner, bus, driver and phone.

Reports and CSV export

Trips, positions and villages export as CSV. Report charts follow on the next two slides.

Report charts: passenger load

Average on board each route, each hour, both directions, on a sample Thursday. Sample data; figures are illustrative.

Load by route and hour

Each cell averages twelve readings taken five minutes apart. Darker cells mean more people on board.

Busiest hour

In this sample, 17:00 to 18:00, with 57 on board on Apia to Faleolo to Mulifanua.

Seats filled

58% of seats filled in the busiest hour, from the passenger counts and each bus's seats.

What it helps decide

Where an extra bus at peak would carry the most people, and which hours run nearly empty.

Report charts: network and coverage

Passengers on board by island every half-hour, and villages more than 2 km from an approved route. Sample data; figures are illustrative.

Load across the network

Average on board each half-hour on Upolu and Savaiʻi. Numbers above the bars are buses in service.

Villages beyond walking distance

In this sample, 14 of 107 villages are more than 2 km from any approved route.

Trips per route per day

Trips run on each approved route each day over the last 7 days, to compare with the services planned.

Travel times between villages

Planned times show today. Measured times appear once real driver trips are recorded.

No passenger accounts

A search sends the passenger's location or chosen village to the server to find buses. It is not stored. Saved places stay on the phone.

Alerts hold no identity

An alert stores the browser's push address, language, bus, pickup point and timing. No name or phone number.

Access by role and audit log

Owners see only their own fleet. Sign-ins expire after 12 hours. Approvals, edits, trip starts and exports are logged.

Who owns the data

We propose that trip data belongs to each operator and is shared with the LTA. The LTA can export trips and positions as CSV.

Where data lives

The public demo holds only fictitious data. Plan: hosting in Australia or New Zealand, positions archived after 12 months.

Outside services used

OpenStreetMap map tiles, a public OSRM server for route drawing, and the browser maker's push service (such as Google or Apple).

01

Weeks 1 and 2

Prepare

Agree operators, routes, an LTA counterpart and targets for each review measure

New work: move to PostgreSQL, hash passwords and PINs, turn demo logins off

Load real buses and phones; we propose in-person training for drivers and owners

Native-speaker review of Samoan screens

If the database work slips, the start date moves

02

Weeks 3 to 10

Run on real roads for 8 weeks

Suggested first routes: Apia to Faleolo and Apia to Lalomanu (LTA to confirm)

Drivers use the dashboard phone on every trip

Owners act on warnings for buses not started

The LTA reviews the live map and reports weekly

03

Week 11

Review against agreed measures

Share of scheduled trips with Start and End recorded

Share of time positions are under 60 seconds old

Mobile data per phone, read from each pilot SIM

Driver, owner and passenger feedback

Joint decision on wider rollout

What we ask

A named LTA counterpart · Two or three operators willing to take part · An Android phone with mobile data on each pilot bus · Any current trip counts or travel times, as a baseline · Agreement on costs and data access · A native Samoan speaker to review the text