Passenger’s location estimation using Kalman Filter for Beacon fare

collection in a Wireless Low Floor Tram

Kiwoong Jung1, Pedro B. V. Bermudez2, HyeonCheol Hwang3, YongGuk Oh4, Jaeho Kwak5
Hanyang University 1, UST 2, Korea Railroad Research Institute 3, 4, 5
kiwoong464@krri.re.kr1, pedro@krri.re.kr2, hchwang@krri.re.kr3,
yongkuk5@krri.re.kr4, jkwak@krri.re.kr5

Abstract properly, every passenger has to tap at least once to

BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) is drawing attention
as it is a new technology capable of communicating
using low energy and doesn’t require pairing as its
classic version. These two facts are important for IoT
applications making BLE a good candidate to be
chosen over other communication technologies (Wi-
Fi, ZigBee, and Bluetooth Classic). One key point of
the automatic fare collection system is the passenger
detection. As passenger nowadays are likely to carry
smartphones with embedded BLE function. Therefore,
first in this paper will be explained how Bluetooth
Low Energy can be used in public transportation
systems such as in a Low Floor Wireless Tram to
check if someone took in fact a public transportation
vehicle (such as: bus, train, metro or tram) or if he or
she is just nearby (waiting for the next vehicle for
example). Next, it will be explained how to improve
Bluetooth Low Energy passenger’s location detection
when using RSSI (Receiver Signal Strength Indication)
for this task.
Keywords: Bluetooth Low Energy, Kalman Filter,
Automatic Fare Collection System, iBeacon, Receiver
Signal Strength Indication
1. Introduction
For a long period of time, public transportation
fare payment relied on a manual method, a worker had
the only function of collecting ticket or money. As
times passed by, automatic fare collection systems
were invented in public transportations to improve
payment method. One advantage of it is the digital
payment, a transportation card with credits started
being used, and consequently, reduced required time
at stops. However, this method still have some
inconveniences.
First, it’s necessary to recharge transportation card
and, unfortunately, payments options are limited.
When recharging sometimes only coins are accepted
or sometimes only cash, and so on. Second, the public
transportation demands tapping operations to work
check-in and once more to check-out. It seems to be
satisfactory number of times, however in rush hours
or when carrying luggage it can be troublesome.
Our idea is to propose an automatic fare collection
system able to pay fare ticket only using smartphone
by its Bluetooth Low Energy function.
2. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
Originally designed by Nokia as a low power
consumption communication protocol and named as
Wibree, Bluetooth Special Interest Group included
this standard in Bluetooth 4.0 and changed its name to
Bluetooth Low Energy [1]. The adoption rate was
high making Bluetooth Low Energy embedded
function present in almost all nowadays smartphones.
Comparing with Bluetooth Classic it doesn’t
require pairing process, making it a good candidate to
be chosen in Internet of Things applications such as
the one described in this paper.
3. BLE Beacons
BLE Beacons are basically BLE transmitters
which broadcasts packets to nearby devices using
2.4GHz waveband. This 2.4GHz waveband is divided
into 40 channels (each channel covers 2MHz interval)
and advertising occurs in three different channels: 37,
38 and 39 [2] as it can be seen:
Figure 1: Wi-Fi and BLE sharing 2.4 GHz
waveband
 Currently there are four important BLE Beacons
protocols: iBeacon, Eddystone-URL, Eddystone-UID
and AltBeacon. Each one of these protocols sends data
differently. In the iBeacon protocol, which one is used
in this project, advertised data packet frame [2] as
shown in Figure 2:
Figure 2: Advertising mode data frame
Advertising data packet is 31 bytes long and
composed of 5 smaller fields. The first field is
“iBeacon prefix”, this field is 9 bytes long used to
specify beacon proprieties, it includes “advertising
flags”, “advertising header”, “company ID”, “iBeacon
Type” and “iBeacon Length”. Following there is
“Proximity UUID” field, this field is 16 bytes long
and has BLE beacon device unique ID. Next, “Major”
and “Minor” fields, each one of them, 2 bytes long.
“Proximity UUID”, “Major”, “Minor” roles can be
seen in table [3]:
Table 1: iBeacon parameters description
Lastly in the data packet frame there is “TX power”
field which indicates RSSI (Received Signal Strength
Indication), it can be used to estimate distance
between a BLE device in advertising mode and BLE
receiver.
4. BLE Beacon Fare Collection System
One key point of the automatic fare collection
system is the passenger detection. As passengers
nowadays are likely to carry smartphones with BLE
function and BLE beacons were attached to the
vehicle it is possible to check when a person took and
took off the vehicle. The system basic configuration is
the following one:
Figure 3: Fare collection system model
As explained in the “BLE Beacons” section of this
paper, in iBeacon protocol one of the transmitted data
is the “TX power”. It indicates the RSSI (Received
Signal Strength Indication).
By analyzing RSSI we can estimate someone’s
smartphone proximity with the BLE beacon. The
higher RSSI value is, closer receiver is to advertising
mode device, and in this case, more likely is to
someone be inside the vehicle. On the other hand,
when beacons stops being detected by passenger’s
smartphone it is likely that passenger arrived at
destination and took off the vehicle. However only
estimating by RSSI is not enough to proceed with
payment automatically so is necessary to have a
confirmation mechanism.
This way, when passenger’s smartphone detects
vehicle’s beacon device and RSSI is sufficiently high,
higher than stipulated threshold, a pop-up message
will appear on the passenger smartphone screen
asking if in fact he or she boarded a vehicle. After
passenger confirmation, smartphone keeps scanning
periodically during the trip to check if the beacon still
nearby. Eventually when passenger take off, beacon
will stop being detected, so a new pop-up message
will appear on smartphone screen to confirm
passenger arrival on destination. Finally, trip itinerary
will be sent to billing server and fare calculated price
sent back to smartphone to start payment procedure.
Previous algorithm is described in below figure:
Figure 4: Automatic fare collection system
passenger detection and payment procedure
 𝑅𝑆𝑆𝐼(𝑑0 )−𝑅𝑆𝑆𝐼(𝑑)
5. Wireless Low Floor Tram d = 10 10𝛾 (2)

The Wireless Low Floor Tram is a tram designed
by Korea Railroad Research Institute. It was
developed to be completely sourced by a 196 kWh Li-
polymer battery and achieve a top speed of 70 km/h.
The main features are its ability to run 35 km distance
with a single charge, complete curves as sharp as 25
m radius and, inside the tram, the indoor noise level is
below 70dB. Because of its low floor property it
provides accessibility for wheelchair users and elderly
people. The tram consists of 5 cars and in each end of
the tram there is a driving cabin, so it’s a bi-directional
vehicle.
In this case, more important than distance
calculation correctness, we want to have a correct IN
or OUT estimation. This way, a test composed of two
steps were set. The first step of the test was to measure
RSSI value while smartphone was inside of the
vehicle, and the second step was to measure RSSI
value when smartphone was outside the vehicle (1 m
away). Tests elements were: tripod, smartphone,
beacon and Wireless Low Floor Tram. Test
configuration pictures can be seen below:

Figure 6: IN and OUT situations, yellow circles

indicate smartphone; blue circle, beacon
Figure 5: Wireless Low Floor Tram developed by
KRRI being tested at Osong track To measure RSSI, we monitored RSSI through the
time using manufacturer recommended application.
Even though there are 388 cities in the world that Sampling rate was 1 every 5 seconds, total
has trams, unfortunately in Korea there isn’t any city. measurement time was one minute, obtained results
This scenario is about to change as there is the can be seen below:
possibility of Daejeon implementing Korea’s first
tram in its metropolitan Line Number 2. Although
paper results were obtained for this tram specifically,
similar approach and ideas of this project can be used
in other transportation systems, such as: trains, metro,
buses.

6. Method
As RSSI is used in “BLE Beacon Fare Collection
System”, it is important to know that, theoretically,
RSSI is attenuated following log-distance path loss
model:

𝑑 Figure 7: RSSI - IN and OUT situation

PL = P𝑇𝑥𝑑𝐵𝑚 − 𝑃𝑅𝑥𝑑𝐵𝑚 = 𝑃𝐿0 + 10𝛾 log10 ( ) + 𝑋𝑔
𝑑0
(1)
Path loss (in equation 1 nominated as “PL”) is the
attenuation of an electromagnetic wave when it is
propagated through the space. For a certain distance
“d”, path loss value can be obtained comparing it with
a reference value (“PLo”). Furthermore, γ is the path
loss exponent and depends with the transmission
medium. “Xg” is a Gaussian random variable that
represents the attenuation caused by fading [4]. If we
want to calculate the distance by RSSI in a “no fading”
scenario, is possible to use the following equation:
RSSI values are instable, this is due to the fact
BLE transmitted power is limited and noise is
inevitable as multipath destructive interference is
present. In fact, Inside the Wireless Low Floor Tram,
RSSI values oscillated more frequently than outside
( σin = 6.14 and σout = 1.20 ), by “ σ ” we mean
standard deviation.
5. Results
Therefore, to improve our measurements results,
Kalman filter was used. This filter was developed by
R.E. Kalman as a regression filter that tracks the
condition of linear and non-linear states that contain
noise. The filter predict and revise states of value past,
present and future. It is useful to predict and track
about model system [6].
The prediction phase is expected when user enters
the input for anticipated state in the previous time
period. The compensation phase is stage for
estimating the exact state of the process based on
processed estimation state and real state. The
estimated process states according to time are
expressed as average and distribution [7].
Figure 8: Kalman filter algorithm
Analyzing filtered signals is easier to classify
correctly if someone is IN or OUT situation as in this
case RSSI values for these two situations are more
spaced one to each other. In the classification process,
if measured RSSI value is higher than a threshold, the
place where RSSI was measured is considered to be
inside the tram, below threshold, outside the tram.
Threshold can be estimated as a value equidistant of
the curves for the two situations, as it follows:
Figure 9: IN/OUT classification by RSSI, after
applying Kalman Filter
In this case, after the signal is filtered for 30
seconds, the signal becomes stable, signal standard
∗ indoor positioning systems for indoor location-based
deviation values get much lower after it (σin = 0.61
∗
and σout =0.10). Comparing to previous situation
where from 30 seconds to 60 seconds the measured
signals were still unstable (σin = 5.40 and σout =
1.15) we can notice how effective Kalman filter was
in filtering RSSI signal.
6. Conclusion
First, in this paper it was introduced how
automatic fare collection system works and its
importance. Next, it was explained how Bluetooth
Low Energy technology works (including BLE
beacons) and how they can used with automatic fare
collection system. Later, it was explained how to
detect IN and OUT situations and improved results
were obtained by applying Kalman Filter.
Even though classification still simple as a linear
classification is applied, in future works we expect to
use more sophisticated algorithms, such as neural
network. This project is interesting as it concerns two
nowadays IT important areas: Internet of Things and
Machine Learning. As it’s likely to have in the future
an automatic fare collection systems when using
public transportation is important to think about its
development, as it is a profitable market.
This research was supported by “Demonstration of
Wireless Low Floor Tram” Project (17RTRP-
13137310-01) funded by Korean Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure and Transport.
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