Browsing by Author "Tenderere, Kudzai"

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    A cashless payment platform for minibus taxis
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-03) Tenderere, Kudzai; Booysen, Thinus; Visagie, Lourens; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The South African Taxi Recapitalisation Program determined that electronic/cashless fare collection systems must be installed in every minibus taxi. However, the past and present initiatives to implement cashless fare collection systems have been focused on using Euro Master Visa (EMV) cards. The problem with these cards is that they exclude part of the population which has been historically marginalised and excluded by financial i nstitutions, m ainly b anks. T his h as h ighlighted t he n eed f or a more inclusive cashless fare collection system in the minibus taxi industry. The cashless fare collection system is also meant to gather data on passenger movement for infrastructure and planning purposes. It was determined that mobile phones have enjoyed a significant p enetration rate into the African and South African population and, as such, mobile money is the best financial technology, particularly for the historically marginalised and financially excluded populations. It was assumed that minibus taxi passengers have Bluetooth devices switched on when they travel. It was determined that social media applications, particularly WhatsApp and Telegram, have become the most used platforms to communicate. Therefore, a decision was made to implement a cashless fare collection system in the form of a Telegram Chatbot: the system would add passenger detection and tracking using Bluetooth. The system for passenger detection and tracking using Bluetooth was designed, implemented, and tested on a couple of local minibus taxi trips. The data gathered from the local trips was analysed to determine the reliability of using Bluetooth for passenger detection and tracking. Generally, Bluetooth use in minibus taxi passengers was neither available nor reliable enough to be used for passenger tracking and identification. The cashless fare collection system was developed without the Bluetooth passenger tracking and identification subsystem.