Project 1 (Proposal)

INTRODCUTION        

With the advent of IoT and smart technologies that are constantly developing and evolving, more and more campuses realise the importance and significance of technologies in fully optimising students as well as local faculties. In recent years, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia has shifted their focus towards the establishment of a smart campus concept. For instance, a QR Code for scanning attendance is one of the examples that are currently implemented in daily teaching.

        Hence, we have downscaled all the problems that have been spotted around the campus area, and integrated with the help of technologies to tackle all of the issues to fully glorify the concept of a smart campus, which is well aligned with SDG 11, which is sustainable cities and communities, to bring significant benefits to the local communities which are students, to ensure that their safety, wellness and benefits that they deserved as a student is well taken care of. With our solutions, we aimed to bring sustainable and long-term solutions to the campus so that the concept of a smart campus can be signified to its highest level.

PROBLEM 1

Non funtioning streetlights
The primary issue for all residents of the UTM, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia hostel—staff, students, and even passing passengers—is the streetlight's malfunction and lack of service. Since everyone depends on the light given by the streetlight starting in the evening, this issue has caused inconvenience.

It was dangerous for those driving cars, motorcycles, and buses along the road without light, especially visitors, as they were unfamiliar with the map inside UTM. As we all know, in the dark, we are complicated and cannot see the road or identify objects on the road, such as road holes, pits, or traffic signs. There were moments when the road was a two-way road, but it would look like a one-way lane. It was difficult to tell we were traveling in reverse without a traffic sign. It was difficult and impossible to predict the risks on the road, such as sliding off into a hole or drain abruptly or getting hurt, not only for those who were driving but also for those who were strolling at night. The car at least has lights to aid with driving, but we simply cannot rely on our cell phone flashlights for walking, as they are insufficient to provide adequate light. Last but not least, it is scary when we are in the ''blind'' mode, especially walking alone at night, and might be lost sometimes.

As we can observe in this photo, the streetlight problem becomes proof that we can’t observe anything on the road, when we are not opening any touch light or flashlight on the phone. This figure showed that the parking outside the hostel has no light at all, which not only causes difficulty for those passing by but also for drivers who need to park in the parking slot.

PROBLEM 2

Parking Inconvenience




The problem of parking in UTM was causing trouble. It caused problems for the drivers because it can be difficult to find a spot to park when we arrive. As a result, we occasionally have to drive about in search of one, which wastes time and fuel.

In certain parking lots, if a driver cannot find a spot, they must exit and navigate a large loop to return, especially if the road is one-way and reversing is not permitted. Therefore, it is crucial for drivers to be aware in advance if parking spaces are available to aid in the decision-making process for finding a spot.

In addition, the number of people in UTM is tremendous, thus a lot of students including the staff were driving, it often happened the situation in which those vehicles cannot find a parking place because of the high amount of number of cars that exist in UTM going to the same place at the same time, for example, students were driving to the faculty at the same time to study face to face and some of the parking slots are reserved for the staff at a certain time, thus more difficult for the students to get parking easily.

PROBLEM 3

Difficult Bus System




Although there is a route and schedule for the bus travelling through UTM, it was hard for the passengers to get the bus on time, since there will be some unexpected situations that happened due to the road situation or personal reasons. Sometimes the bus will come earlier, or later, hence, it is hard to know the time when the bus will reach or come, and where the bus stops or goes and due to this “unknown”, passengers need to spend some time waiting for the bus.

In addition, due to the sense of urgency, sometimes, students will not be patient to wait for the bus when their route like a lecture, meeting, or emergency is going to start around the corner, thus they have to walk, and missed the bus due to the unknown if the bus will come at what time and the period of the bus reach the destination will spend on. Moreover, when the passengers wait successfully for the bus to reach the bus stop, it does not mean that u can get up on the bus since sometimes the bus will be full at peak times such as lunchtime or the break of the lecture, thus, there is no extra space for u to sit even standing.

Hence, the bus driver will not allow you to enter or just directly go through the bus stop without stopping. As a passenger, you have to wait for the next round until the bus comes again. It is not a problem for those who have much time and patience to wait for the bus, but for those who are in an emergency or running with time, it was annoying, therefore, without wasting time waiting for the “unknown”, some people will choose to walk to faculty or where else, so it is necessary to have a solution to indicate that there is available space for u to enter the bus and real-time bus routing location.

SOLUTION 1

Based on the issues we encountered at the UTM Skudai campus. These issues are contributing to students' negative experiences with UTM services. Students will have to wait longer since, for instance, the UTM bus is not operating as planned and they are unsure of when the bus is expected to arrive. As a result, as UTM college residents, we are organizing some solutions to the issues that our friends and we are facing. The solution that we planned is designing an application named White Hats. The primary road leading to UTM and the vicinity of the college are lit by broken street lights, which is the first issue. The UTM road and sign board are made more readable for visitors as well as for students and staff thanks to the street lights. Therefore, using the applications, staff members or students can report a street light outage. The app will be sending the report to Jabatan Harta Bina, UTM. The department will receive the report earlier and without the report through the college. Once the department receives the report, they can arrange for the repair and update the status of our application. In addition, the reporter can track the report’s status through our apps, ensuring the progress is going well. In the interface of reporters, they can check the case status on the main page, if they want to file a new report, they can click “Submit a new report” and the report needs to fill up the reporter’s info which may be students or staff and also the street light area, the area will be divided into the zone by zone. The report must be filled with photos as proof. For the department’s view, which will see the zone where the failure of the street light is located and also update the status column for the case that was received.

SOLUTION 2

Furthermore, there is a parking space shortage that affects UTM workers, students, and visitors. The motorist must turn around and continue to look for a parking space in the UTM, but the more times they circle around, the more gasoline they will use. Thus, the user can locate the parking icon in our app. In order to find the user's current position, the parking function will request permission to utilize their location.


The user of the software can look up nearby parking spots or conduct their own search. Let us get an early interface. Darwish is driving his car and finds the parking lot near the Faculty of Computing (Block N28); when he gets closer to his destination, he checks the number of parking lots available at N28. The app will show him that N28 still have 10 lots. The technology we use is the disk that can detect whether the car is parked in the assigned slot.


When the car is parked, the disk will send the signal to the server, and our app will update the number once the car is parked. For the search function, the user can search the place they want. The search system will show when the keywords are inserted. For example, Lau is typing ‘M’ in the search system, and the parking space at zone M like M01, MA1, M17, M22 and others, will be shown in a list with the respective available number of parking spaces.

SOLUTION 3

Lastly, the punctuality of the bus is also a type of problem that is always faced by UTM Students, no matter UTM bus or a Public Bus. For the current system, The students only can know about the time that the bus from one point to another is, not state the time that arrives at the interval station, so the students estimate of time. The estimation will cause the students to miss the bus and make the students need to walk to the destination to have the lecture or meeting.




So, we are implementing our apps to update the estimated arrival time for each bus and the availability of seats and stand space for the bus. In our app, there will be a specific part for the bus, and the user needs to authorize access by using the location function, which can locate the bus stop nearest to them.




As an example, Kisand is waiting for the bus G, which is from Tun Razak College to the Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, so he can know the ETA for bus G from our app and also the availability of seats and also stand space with the three different colours: green means still have a lot of seats and space, yellow means limited seats and spaces, while red refers to no seats and space for that bus. So that, Kisand can check the ETA for the bus, if the ETA will delay his schedule, he is available to seek for alternative ways to his destination. Meanwhile, the public bus also will be updating its ETA on our app, to let the user can view it all the time in one app, with no need to download multiple apps for bus tracking.

TARGET USERS

According to the problem statement and the solution proposed, target users were been analysed to target the possible users that will be using the solution proposed, which is by using the application, White Hats. There are three major target users, that are:

● Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s students,

● Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s staffs and

● visitors who come to visit Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM).



The suggested alternative, which is to use White Hats, will be very beneficial to UTM students who are staying on campus. Students can report to the relevant department to provide input on the initial problem statement put forth and request repair services for the broken street lights. Consequently, there can be greater assurance for the safety of the students because street lights will impair drivers' and students' visibility, particularly at night. On the other hand, UTM students who have transportation might also be facing the issue of limited space for parking and they might be wasting a lot of time and fuel to find somewhere to park their vehicles when they go to class or search for food. By doing this, students will be less likely to waste time on anything other than finishing their assignments, projects, or even self-improvement. However, the majority of UTM students deal with the problem of the bus's timeliness because not all of them own cars or are permitted to carry them in accordance with the terms and regulations. Due to this grave problem, students will arrive late for class or won't have enough time for lunch during the break. Therefore, in White Hats, we provided the feature of bus tracking where students can determine the estimated time arrived (ETA) for the bus to reach the bus station nearby and at the same time, they can also determine whether there is still have available seats for them and students can determine whether they need to wait for other bus or not.




Other than UTM students, UTM staff will also be one of our target users for our proposed solution. Similar to the condition for UTM students, the perspective has changed. UTM staff mostly will be driving around the campus area when they go to offices or the food court, which is dangerous if the street lights are not functional accidents might occur when the UTM staffs are not able to have enough vision to stay alert the road condition especially when it is either night time or rainy day. Therefore, by using white hats, UTM staffs are also able to report the issue of the unfunctional street lights and the related department will take action to overcome this issue where some UTM staff such as the lecturers or staff that do not have interaction with the related department who might not know who should they report this issue to can make the report easily in an application.


This action will strongly secure their safety no matter as a driver or a passerby. On the other hand, limited parking space is also a critical issue for UTM staff who will be facing this issue every working day and sometimes at weekend. However, this issue can be overcome by using white hats. UTM staff who will be using White Hats can search for the specific parking lot and check whether there is any parking space left. This will deeply improve the efficiency of the UTM staff as they can consider where should they park their vehicle and they do not have to waste their time on finding parking slots and also waste car fuel during check-in to work or lunch break.


The visits to UTM will be our third main target user. Like the other target users, visitors would often drive across campus and yet be unfamiliar with the route, especially when visiting offices, the food court, or just strolling about the campus area. When street lights are down, especially at night or on a wet day, people may not be able to see well enough to be aware of the conditions of the road, which increases the risk of accidents. Therefore, visitors using White Hats will be the most efficient solution to overcome this issue. Visitors can report the non-functional street light, and the relevant department will take action to resolve it. This will decrease the car accident rate and also let the visitors have a more positive image of UTM for having a well-functioning fundamental system to improve visitors’ experiences in UTM. Nevertheless, when talking about visitors looking around the campus, the visitors must deal with the issue of limited parking space as they will be taking their vehicles and it is hard for those who are not familiar with the route of UTM to find parking slots and which parking space should they go to. But using White Hats, they can search for the parking slot before they depart to the destination and this will be a more effective way to save their time to find a parking slot and also a better way for them to avoid going the wrong route where some are one-way route but maybe they do not notice.