Tram route navigation system for smartphone

LRT (Light Rail Transit) has been much attention as the next generation's transportation system. Recently, "Toyama Light Rail" (of Toyama city, Japan) service has been operating as a next-generation tram in order to revitalize public transportation. In order to reduce waiting time at tram stops, passengers would like to obtain live timetable information for any tram stop. We propose a new tram location and route navigation system by using ICT (Information and Communication Technology). The system relays data about the current location of a tram to the smartphone of a tram user. As such, even though without knowing the entire timetable, the system enables the users to get on a tram easily by showing the current location information of a tram in real time. By using this system, we can expect an improvement of user convenience especially for trams lines that have long operational intervals.