Real Time Integrated Transportation System (RTITS)

Proposed System - RTITS

Globalisation – Manufacturing Industry moving to low labour costbase countries.
Increasing importance of management techniques like Just-in-Time, Supply Chain management and Logistics. (as Manufacturers/Suppliers need to shorten lead times and increase lead time reliability to the market)
Transportation plays important role in supply chain and logistics (as it is main operational area associated with the physical flow of inventory, right from raw material supply, to the distribution of finished products within supply chain).
Need for streamline process of deliveries to local customers, so more opportunities for local transport providers. (World as a customer More opportunities for local transport service provides.)
This paper discusses one such novel technique to enable streamline delivery process, and transport industry to operate efficiently and economically.

Contract/Deals are finalized based on telephonic conversation between service provider and client.
Service provider operators manually plans the route (some service providers use route planning software).
Some trucks are equipped with GPS systems to guide the drivers.
Paper based proof of delivery (some service providers have adopted electronic proof of delivery).
Route alterations or additional work in informed to truck drivers through mobile phone conversation.
Goods tracking/tracing is based on information collected at discrete time/place.

No market place for advertising services and finding contract haulage work.
Load planning and scheduling is difficult as of insufficient information about size and weight of parcels.
Dynamic routing of vehicle is not possible as vehicles are not continuously monitored (physical location).
Failure in providing exact pickup/delivery time to client, which makes overall operations time consuming as no-one immediately available at client end.
For route alterations or performing additional work, requires mobile conversation with drivers, this interruption affects the drivers performance and overall service quality.
No mechanism for recording working time of drivers (to adhere with Working Time Directives legislation).

No market place to find the haulage/transportation companies, cost of the service, and also posting their requirements.
Real time tracking/tracing of goods is not available, which affects the planned operations.
Poor communication (limited information available) from service providers.
Altering planned pickup or delivery of goods is difficult as of limited communication with service providers.

Service Provider posts its service coverage area, cost of the service and its planned route into the service pool (virtual market place).
Clients posts their requirements, parcel description (size & weight), pickup/delivery place/time information into the job pool (virtual market place).
Service Provider and Clients search for appropriate advertisements in the virtual market place, and finalize the contract/deal.
Route Planning Software alters the plan based on the service providers vehicles position (captured through vehicles GPS) and capacity (RFID tags associated with vehicles).
Central Server calculates the pickup/delivery time and informs that to the client
New route/job information is passed to the drivers PDA via mobile network. Communication is initiated through GSM modem in the vehicles.

At parcel pickup point, driver attach RFID tags to parcels and this information is transmitted to the server, which improves load planning and scheduling.
At parcel delivery point, driver records proof of delivery on PDA and this electronic Proof of delivery information is transmitted to the server.
Vehicle Position Mapping software at server, shows the position of the vehicles on the map based on the GPS data received from the vehicles. So such mapping of, parcel RFID and electronic proof of delivery helps in real time tracking/tracing of parcels.
In case of an unforeseen events at clients end causing delay or requiring alteration of pickup or delivery, clients can easily inform this to service provider. Service provider then alters its plan and server informs the driver accordingly.
PDA records the driving time, time of the break and time spent at pickup/delivery point for drivers and all these information is transmitted to the server in real time. Server also sends alerts to the drivers when driver approaches the driving limit, which helps service providers to operate according to the Working Time Directive Legislation.

This paper has been a review of some of the critical issues in the current management of transportation services, like lack of a market place, difficulties in load planning and scheduling, lack of a continuous monitoring/tracking tool, failure of notification, and inefficient ways of dynamic route scheduling.
To overcome these problems this paper proposes a Real Time Interactive Transportation System, which uses advanced technologies like GPS, RFID, Electronic Proof of Delivery, GPRS and e-Commerce concepts in a integrated fashion to provide virtual market place for conducting business; real time monitoring/tracking of parcels; dynamic route alterations, load planning and scheduling; and effective communication within the system.
RTITS improves the overall quality of the service as it automates the process and has less human intervention.
This concept is currently being piloted with existing transport software vendor. They are providing this internet based service to transport/haulage companies.